


My Way Home is Through You

by lazarus_girl



Category: Faking It (TV 2014)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-21 09:43:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4824179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazarus_girl/pseuds/lazarus_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a difficult year, Karma and Amy spend the summer together in Beaufort, North Carolina. Determined to get their friendship back on track, they learn more about each other than they ever thought possible. </p><p>
  <i>“She’s coming back to you.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Distant Voices [Amy]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lizardwriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizardwriter/gifts).



> AU ish. Follows canon until the end of 2A, but does include elements up to 2x13. I’ve played a little with the timeline so Karma and Amy are a little older than current canon, just because I thought it played better story wise. It could be seen as running in parallel to 2B, since this verse existed in various forms for a while, but was reinvigorated by ‘party girl’ Karma in the 2B trailer. Otherwise it contains no real spoilers. Chapters alternate between Amy and Karma’s perspective. The listed rating reflects content in the later chapters and not the story as a whole. 
> 
> Fair warning, this story takes the behaviour she exhibits there and amplifies it in a way that’s tonally quite different to the show, which means it touches on some difficult issues. To say anything more would give too much away, but if you’ve read my work in the past, you’ll know that when my stories are issue-driven, I approach it with care and respect. 
> 
> Written for/prompted by [@lizardwriter](http://lizardwriter.tumblr.com), using picks from this list. I hope you like it Liz! If you’ve prompted me within the last year, there will be something in this story for you too. Special shout-out to [@spasticandviolent](http://spasticandviolent.tumblr.com) for being my consult on this one. and helping me sort out a good plot from a jumble of ideas and keeping me on course in all respects. Title from the My Chemical Romance song of the same name.
> 
> Click [here](http://8tracks.com/lazarusgirl/escaping-chaos) to listen to a selection of songs that inspired the writing.

***

 _You are at once both the quiet and the confusion of my heart_  
– Franz Kafka, _Letters to Felice_.  
  
***  
  
**I: Things You Said Over the Phone**  

 

_“Will you take a call from a resident at Wellness Springs Recovery Retreat?”_

It takes you a few long – too long – seconds to register what the woman on the end of the line has said. When your phone lit up, juddering across your desk, it came as a surprise, and as no surprise at all. You’ve been waiting for this, counting off the days on your wall calendar. Summer reading and prep for senior year have just been distractions to swallow up time; you haven’t been focussed on anything beyond getting through one day and the next.

A stack of college admission forms and prospectuses sit unread to prove it.

You haven’t been able to face anything beyond this year yet. You’ve never really known what the future looked like, not really. Karma was always the one with the ideas. You had the big moves figured out – college, jobs, internships, apartments, and things like that. But Karma thought about all the little day-to-day steps in between those. She made the plans work. She made them seem achievable, no matter how ridiculous everyone else thought they were. Karma would talk about all the little moments that stack up. The kind of things that no one takes photographs of, but ultimately always remember.

 _“Miss …”_ there’s a rustling of paper, _“Raudenfeld?”_

Only then you do you realise that you haven’t spoken. “Oh,” you cringe a little, embarrassed. “Yes ma’am. I’ll take it.”

 _“One moment,”_ the woman says again.

Then, the line crackles, followed by muffled voices and the sound of the receiver being passed from one person to another.

_“Amy?”_

The second you hear Karma’s voice – soft and crackling just a little – you feel like crying. You’re not sure if it's out of sadness or happiness. Maybe it’s little of both. You close your eyes briefly, letting the relief wash over you. There have been times when you genuinely wondered if you’d ever get to talk to her again. _God_ , it’s been so long since you’ve heard her voice or made her laugh or hugged her. It’s been too long since you’ve done anything. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

“Hi,” is all you manage. It’s everything and nothing at once.

 _“Hi_ ,” she echoes, small and uncertain.

You’re pacing now, not sure if you should ask her anything and feeling useless because of it. All you end up doing is hovering over the threshold of Lauren’s room, and she’s looking at you oddly for a few seconds until you mouth ‘Karma’ at her and her eyes widen. She’s up from her own desk, motioning for you to sit, closing her laptop and pushing it aside. Having imagined this moment a thousand times, it’s not like you expected. You always thought she’d call her parents first. You wish you were better prepared. It’s not like you haven’t had time to be.

_“I finished treatment. They said I can come home today.”_

You smile, and it feels foreign. She’s coming back. She’s coming back to you.

Then, stupidly, belatedly, you remember she can’t see you. “That’s great Karm!”

Somehow, your voice doesn’t sound as warm as you wanted. You always thought she’d turn up at your door a few days after getting home, and that would be your reunion. At least then you could’ve made it as special as it deserves to be. As special as Karma deserves it to be.

She lets out a long sigh of relief before cautiously asking, _“Are you in Austin?”_

“Still here,” you reply quickly. Too quickly. “There’s a ticket to Beaufort with your name on it.”

You’ve been going to your nana’s in Beaufort every summer for as long as you can remember. Treatment or no treatment, you’re not going to break tradition. It’s week or so later than you’d usually go, but you couldn’t bear to go without her, not after everything that’s happened. You need the change of pace. You need to be out of Austin and back to somewhere safe and calm, before your lives decided to implode. Before everything got complicated. It’s where all your good memories are, and all of those good memories are bound up in time spent there with Karma. You want those memories back just as much as you want her back.

_“Just us?”_

“Just us,” you repeat, feeling the strange tension in the air start to dissipate. “Mom and Bruce are in Cancun, and Lauren’s starting her internship at _Texas Lifestyle Monthly_ next week.”

You glance over at Lauren when you mention her, and she smiles sympathetically from her new position on her bed. You’re surprised that she hasn’t talked yet. Ever since Karma went away, things have changed between you. She’s been the one to field people’s questions and take focus off of you, and comfort you at night when you’ve cried.

(you’ve cried a lot over Karma, but never more than this)

She’s trying not to be excited about the internship, to look like she doesn’t care that it’s come together, but you know she is. Her every other word has been about the damn magazine and Round Rock since she submitted it. At least things are going right for someone. She’s been through a lot too. She deserves this break.

“But we’ll have a whole month, maybe more,” you continue, knowing Karma’s looking for assurance.

It wouldn’t be a disaster if they all came en masse like last year, when your mom was fixated on getting you and Lauren to bond, and you barely saw Karma because of her epic romance with the Garrett the delivery boy who delivers groceries to your nana’s house. It was all very Nicholas Sparks. You’ve both known him for a long time and see him every summer, so it was weird to see Karma go gaga over him out of nowhere. You don’t adapt to change easily. When you were little, the house was full, your grandpa was still alive and Zen used to come along with you, it was all about games of tag, hide-and-go-seek, and pirates with the four of you. You miss that. You miss when summers were about games and having fun rather than makeup, boys, and tanlines. This time, you’re determined none of the latter will be on the menu. Karma needs time to heal, and you need time to get your friendship back on track, and you don’t think having your family, Karma’s, or Garrett and his friends will help in either. It takes a lot of energy, and you don’t think Karma has a lot of that right now. You both need to be selfish. Karma needs to take care of herself, and you? Well, you need to take care of Karma.

_“Sounds good. I’m glad she got it.”_

You’ve busted your ass working as a barista at The Twain since school got out so you could afford the flights because your mom already paid for Karma to go to the retreat. Molly and Lucas just couldn’t afford it. They’re heartbroken, still dealing with what happened to her, and the girl they thought she was. Truth be told, so are you. Beaufort felt like a good idea when you were writing back and forth to her, giving her something else good to focus on while she went through the program. It was meant to help her adjust before school starts back up; but now, it feels like it might be too much for her.

You have to remember what they said. You have to be careful.

_“Amy?”_

Instinctively, you lean forward because she’s gotten quieter, “Yeah?”

_“Will you come get me?”_

The fact she had to ask hurts you. It’s the kind of pain there isn’t a name for. You feel it a lot when it comes to her.

“Of course!”

Tears well up and sting at the back of your eyes. You swing around in Lauren’s chair so she can’t see. You blink, and a few tears slip silently down your cheeks, landing on the knee of your jeans. A few seconds later, a tissue is pressed into your palm, and Lauren squeezes your shoulder. You swallow hard, determined not to lose it. Karma doesn’t need a sobbing mess on the phone. If anyone’s allowed to cry, it’s her, not you. She needs her best friend. She needs you.

Even after everything you’ve both been through, you were the person she wanted to call. It matters. You not sure what it means right now, and even though you’ve written to Karma the whole time she’s been away, you still have so much to tell her.

“I can be there in an hour or so,” you say, trying your best to stay upbeat for her.

_“I don't think I can deal with Lauren or anyone else right now though. Do you think they’d stay in the car? I just … I just need to see you.”_

She sounds so much sadder, so much more desperate than when the call started. There it is again. That familiar ache somewhere in your chest.

“It’s fine,” you say softly, hearing a little happiness seep into your voice. You didn’t want to tell her like this, but it’ll have to do. “I can get you. I got my licence and everything. Bruce says we can go car shopping before school starts.”

You’re smiling again, genuinely, brightly for the first time in a long time. You’re proud. You’re proud to tell her.

_“You got your licence?”_

At the sound of Karma’s voice, laced heavy with sadness, that smile fades. You had a plan. You were meant to learn to drive together. Lucas was going to teach you in the Good Karma truck. Things haven't turned out how you both planned for a long time. You hope Beaufort is the exception. You hope you can get your friendship back on track.

“I did,” you answer carefully, not wanting to say too much right now. Karma knows she’s missed a lot while she’s been away, you don’t want to add to it already. “Bruce gave me extra lessons, I got bored without you around.”

You’re trying for flippant, to laugh this separation off, because it’s the longest you’ve been apart, and you’ve spent most of that time lonely and miserable and terrified that she might not come out at the other end. Not because you didn’t believe she’d try to get better, but you just didn’t dare hope she’d be OK again. Everything about Karma for the last thirty days has been said in hushed voices with serious faces sat around your kitchen table, and you don’t ever want her to think that she can’t ever have fun - or that you’ll never have any fun together – again. Twelve-step doesn’t sound much in abstract terms; neat, fixed rules that are easier to break than they are to follow once you leave the safety of rehabilitation and have to contend with the real world.

_“Boredom makes you very task-oriented.”_

Despite yourself, you let out a small peal of laughter.  “Hey, there’s my Karma.”

 _“Yeah,”_ she sighs, long and hard. _“Sorry she disappeared for a while.”_

“Me too,” you reply quietly.

It sounds a lot like ‘I love you.’

_“I have a lot of apologies to make.”_

“Don’t worry about that for now, OK?”

You don’t want to dismiss her, especially not now, but it’s not a conversation you want to have over the phone. A lot of mistakes have been made in the last year or so. A lot were yours and a lot were hers. It’s about time to call things even.

_“OK. It’s just part of the programme, being honest. Honest with myself and with you. It matters that we’re OK.”_

“I know, Karm. I know,” you stop short, not sure what to say, because you know she’s right. It matters to you too. “We’re OK.”

_“We’re OK?”_

“We are. I promise … I,” you tail off, not wanting to finish that sentence. Those three words get you into trouble. Things are too fragile. Even more fragile than before, and that’s saying something. “I made a mixtape,” you say after a moment, with a horrible, fake brightness.

Even though you know she’ll be able to tell, that doesn’t seem to matter so much right now.

It’s a terrible attempt to change the subject, but you need to. Karma’s always put herself under such scrutiny, and some of her letters were the hardest things you’ve ever had to read. You know she’s lonely and insecure underneath all that bright, beautiful, confidence, but it’s tough seeing it written down. You’ve always felt Karma’s pain. You hurt when she hurts, but this is a different, raw kind of pain that’s hard to heal. There are no wounds to show for it.

“For us to listen to,” you continue, jumping in to fill the silence when Karma doesn’t speak.

That’s kind of a lie; you made it just for Karma. It’s everything she loves that she hasn’t had the opportunity to listen to since she left. That, and the weird oldies stuff you used to listen to when Lucas would drive you around in the juice truck, random songs that you used to dance around to in Karma’s room, singing at the top of your lungs while she pretended she was on _American Idol._ Those songs make you cry a lot more than they make you smile these days.

Why did things have to change so fast?

You clear your throat as if confessing something when you say, “I made it for you.”

On the line you hear the barest hint of a laugh. _“You’re the best.”_

You’re smiling again, because it sounds a lot like ‘I missed you.’ Maybe because that’s exactly what you want to say. You want to tell her that you missed her, so, so much and you’re glad that she’s doing OK, and she’s well enough to come home, because you never want to be separated from her again.

But, you don’t say any of that because the woman from earlier cuts in with a gentle, “Karma?,” and you suddenly realise how long you’ve been talking. Surely more time than she was allowed.

_“I should go …”_

“OK,” you reply, barely able to hide your reluctance to end the call.

You wish you could keep her there on the line until you make it all way to Belverde. It’s ridiculous, but you’d be perfectly fine just listening to the sound of her breathing for that hour drive. It’s not so long ago that you didn’t think you’d ever hear that again, and you didn’t dare get used to hospital rooms and beeping machines.

_“See you soon.”_

She’s trying for the bright and bubbly girl that’s been your alarm clock since forever, but it just sounds like someone pretending to be her instead. The whiplash you’re feeling already is strange. Maybe Karma’s not the only one who will need time to adjust.

“Real soon, Karm,” you say, softly, hoping to calm her a little like before. “We can stop and get some breakfast if you like?” you add, blurting it out before you realise.

It'll be too late really, closer to lunch, but you don’t care. Not anymore.

You’d started to take your weekend breakfasts for granted, certain that she’d always be across from you in that little diner with pancakes, bacon, and maple syrup. Now, you don't care that she’ll take forever to order and then tell you she’s gotten the wrong thing and steal half of yours because it looks better. You’ll take it. You’ll take anything as long as it means you get to see Karma in that seat across from you instead of reading between the lines of carefully constructed letters.

_“I’d really like that.”_

“Pancakes?” you ask, with a smile, already knowing the answer that’ll come straight back.

It’s a relief when it happens.

_“Pancakes.”_

So much has changed between you; it’s nice to know that some things – even stupid little things that no one else would care about – can stay the same. Karma, _your_ Karma, your best friend in the whole world is still there and you thought you’d lost her. For good. You wait a few seconds, wondering if you should say anything else, but then hang up anyway, knowing that if you don’t, you’ll never get off there, because Karma can never ever hang up first.


	2. Other Galaxies [Karma]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Nothing about this is easy.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For general story notes see [chapter one](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4824179/chapters/11047760). This story is a purposeful slow burn. It doesn’t reveal everything about why or how Karma ended up as she has (and how Amy deals with that), but will do so over time. The pacing of this is important to the mood/style, so I didn’t want to rush things. Contains a brief, but important reference to Virginia Woolf’s _The Waves_ , but its relevance explained with the story so no prior knowledge is needed. Thanks for all the love and support on this one so far. I’m really pleased with how it’s been received. Hope this lives up to expectations!

**II: Things You Said Under the Stars**  

 

_“There you are.”_

Amy. You’d know that voice anywhere. There’s no panic in it, like you thought there might be because you wandered off after dinner. There’s just the warm, soft sweetness you’d started to forget the sound of.

You look up at her and smile. “Hey. I just needed some time to think,” you offer, not really sure why you feel the need to explain yourself. It’s Amy.

She hasn’t really needed to look for you either, since she can just about see you from her nana’s kitchen window if she looks hard enough.

“I figured,” she shrugs, with a smile. “I bought some of nana's lemonade. Life decisions can make you thirsty,” she continues, holding up the bottles. The glass clinks musically, and you take it when it’s offered. “Can I sit?”

You nod, unsure why she’s asking. There’s plenty of room on either side, and she could sit anywhere she likes, but like you knew she would, she sits right next to you. Every other year you’ve sat together on this deck, she’s just plopped herself down wherever she feels like. The fact that she doesn’t tonight makes you uneasy. She unties her sneakers and takes them off, putting them right next to yours. You like how it looks. It makes the distance that’s obvious between you – and has been for some time – seem a little less than it was before.

“Does it have any gin in it?” you ask looking over at her, smirking a little, bottle close to your lips.

Amy’s face darkens and you regret it immediately. The old Karma could get away with that, but not this Karma. The new, but still improving Karma, who’s built herself back up from nothing. The Karma who’s been dragged kicking and screaming back into sobriety.

“That’s not funny, Karma.”

You had to try. She’s being careful and cautious, as if you’re liable to break at any moment. You’re not, not anymore, but she’s still learning. So are you. It’s easy to forget in all this that Amy got hurt too. She’s still hurting. You both are.

“Sorry, lame joke,” you say, looking down at the bottle in your hands instead of her.

“Yeah,” she replies, taking a sip of her own lemonade. “A little early, Karm.”

The sadness you hear now is familiar, but the bitterness isn’t. You’re not sure how to feel about it. If Dr Levin were still here you’d hop into the huge leather chair in her office and talk it through. But, you don’t have Sally anymore, you only have what she taught you, and it has to be enough if you’re not going to let these last few months define your entire life.

“Sorry,” you say again.

“It’s OK,” she assures, sounding anything but.

Even so, you smile at her again and she shuffles closer. You look down at your legs dangling off the dock with hers. She nudges at your leg with her foot, her own smile widening. You missed this. You missed her. So much. Though it’ll be difficult, you’re determined to set things in motion so you don’t spend this whole trip caught between apologising and drowning in the deep-seated sadness you're still fighting to overcome. You have to remember what Linda said right before you got into the car with Amy. This is a fresh start, about living, not existing.

It’s the last year before college after all. Time like this, time with her, shouldn’t be wasted.

All you wanted the whole time you were away in Belverde was to come back and have it be like it was before, but you’re not sure it can be. Not yet. If ever. Too much has happened that you need to talk about. That you need to stop _not_ talking about. There’s so much that you’re not sure where to begin. Even though you know Amy would probably sit here until the sun came back up again and listen to your every word, you’re not sure if she’s ready to hear everything. So much of the how and the why of what sent you to the retreat in the first place is bound up in her.

You’ve been in Beaufort a few days now, and you’re starting to settle in a little, relax some, but there’s still a lot weighing on your mind. For as long as you can remember, you’ve always come to the dock at the end of the day. When you were little girls, it was to swim or take trips in Amy’s grandfather’s boat, pleading for him to go back and forth until his arms got tired.

(he’d keep going even when they were. Amy misses him. So do you)

Later, when you weren’t so little, you’d come out here with Amy to get away from the noise of the house, and talk about your parents. Sometimes you’d bring your guitar and play a song, or Amy would read. Mostly, you’d just sit together in the most blissful, comfortable silence you’ve ever felt, watching the birds fly over or the ducks swim across. It was never this late before of course, Amy’s nana used to enforce curfew when you were in middle school, but she wouldn’t say a thing when you’d stay up talking to Amy for so long you’d be falling asleep into your breakfasts.

Part of you is getting twitchy because it’s well past your curfew at the retreat, and you’re wondering if you should go inside yet, but you don’t want Amy to think you’re weird. It’s dark, still a little warm, but not stifling. The lake is calmer than you’ve ever seen it. The sky is clearer than you ever remember it being. No photograph will do this justice.

“It’s nice out, huh?” you say after what feels like a really long time. Your lemonade is still two thirds full. Holding the bottle is strange, but you don’t want to let go of it.

“It is,” she replies, softly, leaning back a little to look at the stars.

You’re waiting for her to point out the constellations to distract herself from the dark just like her grandfather used to.

She doesn’t.

This is the longest you’ve both sat still since you got here.  Usually, Amy doesn’t get up before noon unless you drag her out of bed, but here it’s different. She’s always up early and wanting to do things, so the busyness has come as no surprise, but the way it seems so planned, so regimented? That is. Routine is important, the retreat taught you that, and it’s been nice to do different things. You like going for walks, and stopping every time someone who knows you both says what ‘nice young women you’ve become.’ You like dipping in and out of the little stores looking at the strange trinkets, getting milkshakes at the diner and humming along to the jukebox in the corner that’s older than your combined ages. You like it, but it’s not what you used to do together. Ever since high school, vacation afternoons here have been for Bogart and Bacall or Fred and Ginger in the old movie theatre, stuffing yourselves with popcorn and repeating every single word to each other, pulling stupid faces. She’s following Dr Levin’s routines of another kind: fresh air and exercise and social interaction. 

She’s changing herself for you, or you’ve changed her. You’re not sure which.

“What was it like?”

You glance up, startled when Amy speaks again. She doesn’t need to elaborate on what the “it” is. She sets her bottle aside and so do you. You wish the dock lights didn’t burn as brightly as they are now. You can’t hide from her, but then, you never really could.

“It was …” you tail off, letting out a long steady breath.

Nothing about this is easy.

“Hey,” she says, putting her hand over yours gently, “you don’t have to talk about this if you’re not ready. You don’t have to talk about it ever if that’s what you need to do.”

“I want to, but I don’t know if …” you stop short, lifting your head to the sky, eyes closed.

As soon as you think of the retreat, you think of Sally’s room and the big armchair you sat in for hours. You think of the ticking clock on the wall, the scratch of her pen against her notepaper, and the creak of her glasses on her nose whenever she’d adjust them. You think of group therapy and Ricky and Taylor, of Erica and Stevie and Michael, all sat on those wooden stacking chairs, united in your reluctance and how much Amy would like them all if she could meet them too. You’re almost sad you’ll probably never see them again. You think of Dr Hall, Marcus, encouraging you to share stories. You think how your every other word of those was ‘Amy,’ and you can’t tell her the truth of it all quite yet.

“It’s OK,” Amy assures, and there’s an arm around your shoulders, squeezing just a little. “Just tell me what you want to.”

The way she says it makes it sound like one of those reports you used to do in elementary school. You’re not sure how well yoga, raw food diets, talking therapy, and long afternoons spent writing letters or journal entries would sound to the eight-year-old you who tagged along on Amy’s family vacations, full of days on the beach and ice cream and bike rides.

You open your eyes at last and say, “I missed you,” because it’s true.

She looks at you with sad, sad eyes. “Not having your morning texts was weird,” she says, with a smile. It doesn’t reach her eyes, and you can tell she’s trying hard to keep it light, but there’s a telltale crack in her voice that gives her away. “I had to use my phone alarm.”

“I missed writing them.”

You hear her gulp in air and you know she’s trying not to cry. You move closer, resting your head on her shoulder.

“It sucked so much without you. The food was terrible, and I couldn’t really sleep for a while,” you look out to the lake instead, because if you look at her you’ll burst into tears and never stop.

You don’t tell her that it was because you couldn’t sleep without her next to you.

“Oh, Karm,” is all she manages in return, absently stroking your hair.

“It got better. It got a lot better when I got your letters. I realised it wasn’t going to work unless I started talking.”

That’s true. Sally said you needed the breakthrough. The first one came when Linda gave you Amy’s letters, sent regularly since the day you arrived, held back until you earned the privilege. It took a while, because you yelled and screamed and tore up your room because you didn’t want any of it. You didn’t want to be analysed and scrutinised. You didn’t want them to turn you inside out and shake all your secrets out, leaving you upended with empty pockets. You hated them for leaving you with a bare room. You hated them even more when they took away your phone and your flask. Those tiny sips of _whatever_ steadied you and got you through the day. It was a crutch, and as soon as it was gone, you collapsed, but you needed to, you’d become dependant without your notice. Detox. It sounds so innocuous. No matter what happens, you think you’ll always spare her the sweating, the hallucinations, the headaches, and the vomiting, and the complete and absolute desperation you felt without her being there to soothe you like she is now.

She would’ve, you know that. You know it without a doubt.

“What did you talk about?” she ventures, careful.

“A lot of things,” is your best answer right now.

She inhales sharply. It says everything neither of you dare. Ever since you first looked her in the eyes in the parking lot of the retreat, everything about them said ‘this is all my fault.’ One day, sooner rather than later, you’ll prove to her that a lot of it was your fault too.

“It was weird talking to Dr Levin at first, I thought she’d, you know, judge me, but in the end, it was OK. All of it got to be OK. I don’t know how I’ll ever thank you, or Farrah, or anyone.”

You look over at her finally, tears stinging, threatening to fall.

“You’re here, and you’re getting better,” she admits, a tear rolling down her cheek, you reach out to brush it away with your thumb. “That’s enough Karm. That’s enough.”

She squeezes you tight, a little too tightly, and you think of that first hug in the parking lot with Linda watching on. You think of the softness of her t-shirt and her mother’s laundry soap. You think of her shampoo, and her perfume engulfing you, being more than you ever remember. You think of the complete and utter safety you felt when she held you, cradling your head with a tenderness you felt undeserving of. You still do. You think of your heart, pounding, loud and unsteady in your chest, just like it is now. It’s a warning. It’s a reminder.

“Hey,” you say, a little brighter, watching her blink back more tears. “I read _The Waves_.”

She lets out an unexpected peal of laughter. “You did?”

“I did. I had a lot of time,” you nod, laughing a little too. The air seems to change then all of a sudden. It’s less heavy, less dense with the sadness of all the things you can’t quite say yet. “I wanted a break from John Green and Stephanie Meyer,” you shrug.

“Did Virginia impress?” her mouth quirks up into the beginnings of a smile.

You nod, watching that smile grow until it’s as bright and brilliant as you imagined. It’s only then you realise how much you missed it. Reading the novel curled up on the windowsill, listening to the rain battering down, was amazing, beautiful, and painful. It was everything Amy ever said it would be. But, that’s not the only reason you loved that battered old book with the yellowing pages and the peeling thrift store sticker. You loved reading it because of the moments you’d find her underlinings and pencil notes, pointing out her favourite parts. You’d find yourself tracing over the letters, craving the tiniest bit of contact. It was like she was sitting next to you, reading over your shoulder. For a few hours a day, Austin, home, and Amy didn’t seem that far away at all.

“I get it now,” is all you add, looking her right in the eye for the first time. “I get it.”

You don’t need to say anything else, because she does it for you, in a half whisper, right in your ear. “I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me.”

You understand now. It’s her way of telling you that you’ll be fine, that change can be good. It doesn’t mean disaster.

Then, she kisses your temple with such gentleness you feel like crying. You don’t flinch, you don’t fight it. You just let it be. You think that so much of this would’ve been easier if you’d done that more often. Just let go. Thought less. Done more. You turn your gaze back to the lake, remembering. It’s been four days, almost five now, and you haven’t so much as dipped a toe in that water. Gone are the days when Amy’s nana would call you her litle water babies while you pretended to be mermaids. You’re too old for mermaids, but you’re not too old for swimming, and you’ll never be too old for jumping off the dock. There’s nothing quite like the rush of adrenaline and those blissful, exhilarating, terrifying seconds before you hit the water. It feels wrong that you haven’t done it yet, but more than that, you’re tired of everything feeling strange and everyone treating you differently.

“We can’t break tradition,” you blurt out, motioning toward the lake.

Amy’s brows furrow. “Huh?”

“We haven’t jumped in!” you turn toward her smiling. “Come on!”

You slip out of her grasp, and pull her up with you, not really giving her any choice in the matter.

“It’s night time, I’d like to see anything that might kill me,” she protests, yanking her hand away, arms folded across herself immediately. “You know, in the interests of not actually drowning or being bitten.”

“We’ll do it together, like always,” you counter, hoping to persuade her.

You can feel her glaring at you as you shimmy out of your dress. It won’t last.

“You’re really fine with this, like, right now?” she asks, the fear in her voice is just starting to fade.

Now she just thinks you’re being strange, impulsive Karma. That’s what you want her to think, because that’s what she’s always thought. That means everything is normal. You want normal. You need normal.

“Totally and utterly fine,” you reply, surprised at your sudden boldness. “I want to get back to us, Amy. I’m not going to dissolve if we do anything slightly dangerous, I promise.”

“OK,” she concedes, and out of corner of your eye you see her t-shirt coming off. It’s her favourite band shirt. If it gets lost or you leave it on this dock, she’ll kill you. “If we get hypothermia and die, it’s your fault.”

“Trust me?” you ask, looking at her as her shorts drop next to your dress. “It’ll be like starting again. I have to let go of all of this ….”

“Baggage?” she cuts in, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, something like that,” you reply, holding out your hand for her to take.

That’s a neater word for all the pain and confusion you both carry, but it’s the easiest way to describe it.

“Let's do this,” she’s smiling now, looking down at your joined hands.  “Ready?” 

“Ready!”

You look ridiculous, standing there in your mismatched underwear, but you don’t care. Nothing matters. The retreat doesn’t matter. Austin doesn’t matter. School and everyone in it doesn’t matter. Nothing. All that matters is Amy, and that she’s with you, sharing this, right now. Together, you walk to the farthest end of the dock, and turn to face the lake. To begin with, you walk forward slowly, looking between her and the horizon, trying to gauge things, but then you both break into a run, laughing. Eyes closed, you let her lead, gripping her hand as tightly as you can. You both scream, giddy and high-pitched, as you jump into the water.

It’s cold, much colder than you expected, but you like the shock. It’s like someone flipped a switch, lifting you out of this fog of sadness and Ambien.

You feel alive, for the first time in the longest time. For a few moments you just stay with her, holding your breath and kicking your legs just enough to keep from sinking. Both of her hands are in both of yours and everything feels serene and perfect. You’d stay forever if you could. She gives a nod and you know it’s time to go back up. You move to the surface together, holding just one hand this time, matching her kicks. When you reach it, you sputter, coughing because you swallowed water, and gasping for air, flailing a little when she’s forced to let go of your hand. 

“Fuck it’s cold!” she exclaims, circling you, but she’s smiling, really smiling. She swims closer to you with the laziest of strokes while she tries to acclimatise herself.

“It’s gonna get colder!” you singsong, splashing her right in the face. 

She gasps painfully loud when the cold takes her breath,  and you almost feel bad until she starts to laugh. “You’re dead. You’re so dead!”

“You have to catch me first!” you call, turning to face her before swimming off again. 

“I’ll get you back for that!” she warns. “You just wait.”

Then, she’s chasing you across the water. She’s faster than you, and catches up quickly, and you’re just there, alternating between treading water and splashing each other until it gets too fast and you can’t get a breath in. 

Sensibly, Amy’s the one to slow things down.  “I think we needed that, huh?” she says, reaching to push the stray strands of hair off your face.

“See,” you say, softly, taking both her hands in your own. “I’m still here, Amy. I’m still your Karma.”

She pulls you into another hug, but it feels different to the one in the parking lot, when you know she was checking for differences, feeling every little change in your body that she hadn’t been there to witness. It feels welcome and familiar, and less like she’s trying to protect you from breaking. This is the start of getting your life back. A new life. A better life. The life you’ve always wanted.

“Yes, yes you are.”

For a second, it feels like you stop breathing. Like the whole world stops, and it’s kind of wonderful. She looks at you for a long time, with such fondness and such _love_. You don’t know what it means or how you feel about it, but you do know this: you know you can’t be without her, and for now, that’s perfectly OK and it’s more than enough.


	3. Open Roads [Amy]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“The timing couldn’t be worse.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For general story notes see [chapter one](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4824179/chapters/11047760). I see this chapter as the gamechanger for this story. Consequently, it’s only fair to flag up now that it does touch on some dark material in revealing more of what happened to Karma before her time in rehab. For those who have taken time to read, give kudos and/or comment so far, I really appreciate it. Thank you. Click [here](http://8tracks.com/lazarusgirl/karma-and-amy-s-road-mix) to listen Karma and Amy’s road mix, which features throughout this chapter.

**III: Things You Said While We Were Driving**

 

_“I had the best day.”_

You glance to your right, seeing Karma smiling. It’s still a little strange to see her in the passenger seat even though things are getting better between you. It’s starting to feel normal. To feel like you’re Karma and Amy again, not Karma _and_ Amy, or even ‘Karmy.’ Better still, you’re settled in Beaufort, and things are less awkward because you’re getting used to being around each other again, but driving around with her is new. A nice kind of new, but new nonetheless.

“It’s not over yet,” you reply, and watch when her smile widens.

“True,” she nods. “I hope you saved room for our dinner at the Blue Moon Bistro.”

She sounds a little like your mom when she says that, but the fact she’s smiling and drinking cream soda and spent the last ten minutes eating red vines kind of undercuts it. You haven’t talked about how she feels today, if she’s written in her journal, or if she feels guilty that just about every rule of her food plan has been broken. You tried to stick to it, but Karma wanted today to be ‘ordinary’ and ‘normal.’ For once, she was the one picking everything out at the gas station and not you. So, you did what you always do, you followed Karma’s lead.

“Always,” you reply, incredulous, because nothing will come between you and their seafood.

The Blue Moon Bistro is your favourite place to go, and your nana’s been taking you there for the last couple of years now that you can actually appreciate what good food is. She stopped treating you like children long time ago, and it’s cool to hang out with her, Lois and Joanie. They’re always full of gossip and stories about when your nana was young, she always plays down whatever they say, but it makes you realise how similar you both are. Karma likes all that, but her favourite part is getting to dress up and strong-arm you into letting her do your makeup.

You practically see the light bulb go off above her head.

“Oooh, I could curl your hair. It looks super pretty when it’s curled,” she says, briefly leaning across and catching hold of the ends of your hair. “And you could borrow one of my dresses maybe?”

“It’ll like, drop out,” you counter. Karma’s hair is magic. Even in summer it stays how she styles it. Yours never does what you want it to, much less in heat and she knows it.

“Fall out,” she corrects, and you make a face. “Indulge me?”

She doesn’t quite do the puppy eyes and the pout, she knows not to push those buttons anymore, but it feels like it. You’re never really in a position to argue with her. You also know she loves this kind of routine, and it’s not the kind of thing she would’ve been allowed at the retreat.

“Fine,” you concede, and she beams, giving a little cheer. You laugh, shaking your head at her, trying to ignore how adorable she looks. “No pink,” you warn, trying and failing to look serious.

“Nope,” she nods. “No pink. Promise,” she sips on her soda pointedly, and it makes a hideous slurping sound, near empty.

           

“Sure,” you reply, eyes narrowing at her in faux threat before turning back to the road. “I believe you.”

“Thank you,” you hear her say. You turn to her again to ask why, because you haven’t done anything out of the ordinary, when a kiss lands awkwardly on the corner of your mouth.

It’s a miracle you don’t crash, but you do step a little too much on the gas and get a little too close to the car in front. You want to jump in and reassure her that it’s OK, and you’re not freaked out, and it’s fine –  it’s so the opposite of fine, but you don’t want to scare her right now –  but you can’t make any words come out. She just looks at you in this way –  she’s been doing it a lot lately  – that you don’t really have a name for, and you can’t help but notice that she’s blushing when she turns away to look out of the window.

You say nothing, and you don’t turn around again when you know she’s looking over.

The sound of old school Elton John on your playlist –  one of Lucas’ truck favourites  – gets drowned out. All you can hear is your heart pounding, loud, fast and unsteady. It’s still there. Karma is still the one to jump start it, even after all this time.

Unexpected kisses and weird feelings aside, when you used to imagine your summer with her, daydreaming between clearing tables at The Twain, it looked a lot like this. You’re driving along Highway 58 with the windows down. It’s the good kind of hot, with clear blue skies, and a gentle breeze the whole day. You haven’t mastered the art of driving one-handed yet, you’re kind of terrified of being pulled over for the slightest thing, and it took you a full ten minutes of begging to wrestle the car keys from your nana to borrow the car. Ever since then, Karma’s been your navigator, plotting the places to visit, making you zigzag back and forth and sometimes take the longest route possible, but you don’t mind much. Not when she’s been keeping you full of soda, Cheetos, and candy the whole journey.

You’ve talked a lot, told stupid jokes, and teased each other. Your mixtape has been running on and off between the local stations and whatever weird stuff Karma’s found when she played around with the dial. There have been loud moments, when you’ve both sung along – mostly off key –  at the top of your lungs, duetting to Bruno Mars, Train, Sara Bareilles, Haim, and Taylor Swift; and watched Karma completely lose her shit over Demi Lovato’s new song. That track went on and off the mix at least ten times, because even though Karma has loved her forever, the lyrics made you want to disappear into the nearest sinkhole and die. In the end, Karma’s love (and your love for Karma) won out. There have been quieter times, when you cursed yourself for picking Ryan Adams and The Weepies, reaching across the console to take Karma’s hand while you both looked at each other with tears in your eyes. There were moments when you hated yourself even more because you forgot to take off Fun’s ‘We Are Young.’ It used to be Karma’s favourite and the lyrics hit you both like a ton of bricks. She swatted your hand away from the stereo when you wanted to skip the track.

(you’re glad she didn’t let you in the end)

For a while, it made you feel normal again. It let you see that you and Karma could survive this. Even though Karma’s still healing, she won’t be broken forever. Neither will you.

Perfect isn’t a word you’d use often, but today it feels right to. This is the Crystal Coast after all, but the landscape hasn’t really been the focus of your attention lately. You’ve never seen Karma this happy and relaxed. She has her bare feet up on the dash, and she’s wearing a pretty blue sundress. Her hair is tousled and curly from your swim at Atlantic Beach earlier on. She stole your aviators and bought you some knock-off Ray Bans to compensate (she looks better in them anyway). Every so often, she sticks her hand out the window, flexing her fingers against the air currents and distracts you from the road. Today, for the first time in a long time, she looks like your Karma, she looks something like the girl you remember. She looks free. She looks beautiful. Those are the kinds of things you keep to yourself these days, but you can feel things  – things you’ve tried to ignore and repress where she’s concerned  – coming back to the surface.

The timing couldn’t be worse.

You wish you could blame the fact you’ve descended into silence on that almost kiss, but you can’t. It’s not even the first time you’ve felt something between you. That _something_ – whatever it is –  has been there ever since whatever the _hell_ happened at the lake after you jumped into the water, hand in hand with Karma. It’s been there every day following your little leap of faith. Though it was just a short drop into the lake, it was more than that, so much more. You think you’re still falling, still wondering when you’ll land, and if Karma will be there when you do.

“Sorry about that,” Karma says, in a small voice.

When you glance over, her feet are off the dash and she’s pressed closer to the door than she was before anything happened. You swallow, choosing your words carefully, thankful that she can’t bail out of a moving vehicle to escape whatever’s still between you. Every option you think of is somehow incriminating.

“Don’t be,” you counter, trying for nonchalant. “It’s cool.”

You don’t want to scare her. Don’t want to make a big deal. If it’s any of those things, then it's something worth talking about, and you don’t even know where to start.

She looks at you apologetically, smiles thin and tight. The tension in the air falls back level. It’s just a reprieve, you know it.

A small Shane-like voice in your head is chanting ‘lesbian energy’ repeatedly, and you wish it would quiet, but all it seems to do is get louder and louder, hanging between you. This time, it’s not _just_ in your head. There are flickers, very real flickers of something in her that tells you she feels something like you do. Like you always have. You’re too afraid to ask what it means, but you can’t seem to dismiss it all either. You can’t stop thinking about all the moments you’ve shared that have felt different. Felt exactly like when you were faking it, but much _more_ and _different_ and incredibly _real_. That feeling has been there when you dancedwith Karma to the oldies station in your nana’s kitchen, laughing when you stepped on each other’s toes, twirled and dipped her. It was there when you’ve played Texas hold ‘em for small change with Joanie and Lois well into the evening, trying not to smile at how appallingly bad Karma’s poker face actually was.

It’s been there today, when you took the early ferry to Cape Lookout, watching the waves with her, arms around each other’s waists as you leant over the railings to take pictures. It was there much later, in the fond look she had whole time you wandered around the Maritime Museum hand-in-hand with her, alternating between teasing you about your extreme show of nerdiness in the maritime library, and reminiscing about the times your grandpa brought you both and would tell his stories while you walked around the exhibits – each clutching his hand as tightly as Karma held yours. It was there in the afternoon, when you sat together and ate lunch at Crab Claws and she dabbed the sauce off your face with a napkin, closer to you than she’s been in months. It was still there when you put on bikinis and laid out towels on the beach, and rubbed sunblock on her back to stop her fair skin from burning, and your hands shook when you untied her bikini top because she asked. It was there when you turned tail for the sea, heart speeding and face flushed over the way she moaned (accidentally) when your hands moved in slower softer circles. It was still there when she decided to chase you down the beach and you spun her around, and picked her up and threw her into the surf. It was there in the giddy, breathless way she looked at you after more laughing and faster chasing that ended with you both in a heap, half on the sand, half in the water. Karma was on top of you, her mouth inches from yours.

(You hate that you weren’t brave enough to close the gap)

It’s still there now. In this suddenly too small car. You only just got Karma back, you’re terrified that if you do anything, or if you question her, that you’ll end up losing her all over again.

You can’t survive that twice.

Neither of you have talked for what feels like a long time. Karma’s played with the stereo, and put your mix back on, skipping and back forth between the tracks. There’s no singing this time. No fond smiles or tear-filled glances. Nothing. Meanwhile, you’ve feigned paying attention to the road, almost jumping out of your skin when the Chevy truck behind tooted its horn at you for slowing down too much. Lesson one: you can’t eat and drive. Lesson two: you can’t think and drive. Not about Karma anyway.

“Did Reagan ever make a playlist for you?” Karma blurts out.

It’s not an odd question, Shane asks things like that – too much – all the time, but from Karma? It feels weird. You’re not sure why she’s asking, since you’re also pretty certain she’d rather you and Reagan had never met for various reasons. You’ve never been one to overshare and gush, that’s her MO, but you were never in the right place with her to be able to talk about girlfriends and whatever else with the breezy simplicity that other people  – other friends  – take for granted.

“A mixtape?” you sigh deeply, replying with a bitter “No.” An empty laugh escapes at the end when you realise how bitter you sound. She looks up, clearly surprised, but doesn’t comment. “Reagan's not really the gift giving kind,” you add, hoping it’ll close off the conversation.

Now isn’t the best time for it. Though, you think there will never _be_ a good time. That’s half your and Karma’s problem.

“Oh.”

And then, quite quickly, she joins the dots. Just when you’re flexing your fingers against the steering wheel to release the tightness because you’ve been gripping so hard, and wondering how the hell you’re going to phrase it so it doesn’t sound like her fault (it is, and it isn’t), she says the words you can’t bring yourself to.

“You and Reagan broke up, didn’t you?” it's asked in a calm, almost sad voice, as if the two of you crashing and burning means more to her than it does to you. Maybe it does. You’re still not sure, because your relationship symbolised getting over Karma and moving on, but you’re not entirely sure you really ever managed it.

“Yeah,” you reply quietly, “We did.”

It’s strange to say it out loud after all this time. You still feel a vague twinge of something  – sadness, remorse, guilt, all of the above? – over the fact that it happened, and you couldn’t bring yourself to tell Karma, you best friend in the whole world, such a huge life event. No one’s more surprised than you that there’s no smile on her face either. There’s no quick retort about how Reagan’s an idiot, or a bitch, or anything else the old Karma would’ve labelled her as in your defence. Reagan’s none of those things. Not really. It hurt, it hurt more than you imagined it ever might. Dating Reagan was fun, about moving on from Karma and proving that you could. All you ended up proving was that the ties between you really do bind. As it turns out, Reagan makes a better friend than a girlfriend. Once the initial hurt wore off, she was one of the first people to text and ask how Karma was doing, and was actually interested in your answer. Later, she came to The Twain while you were helping your boss close up and you talked. A lot. It was cathartic. She said it was better this way (she was right). She wished you the best. You still text from time to time, and trade likes on the rare occasion you’re online. Funny how things work out.

“I’m sorry,” Karma says, sincerely, reaching over and touching your shoulder. “Really, I am. I know she made you happy.”

It’s an even bigger surprise, you know, that you don’t snap back, ‘no you’re not,’ and shirk her touch, or, more dramatically, ‘it’s not your fault’ and do the same.

“For a while,” you offer, annoyed when you feel tears stinging at the back of your eyes.

“When?” is all she prompts, and you really wish she hadn’t.

“A month or so,” you shrug, keeping your eyes fixed on the road.

You can be more specific than that, painfully specific. Officially, you broke up the day Karma left for the retreat in Belverde after a chat in a coffee shop near Reagan’s apartment when you talked about how you needed time, and space, and were in different stages of your lives. It ended with a hug, a brief kiss on the lips, a wave, and the soft call of  ‘Bye Shrimp Girl,’ when you turned to leave. Unofficially, you broke up following a screaming match with her in a crowded emergency room because she was sick of ‘coming in second.’ In anger, you might’ve accidentally said you blamed her for not being at the party when you were supposed to be. If you weren’t late, Karma would’ve gotten less drunk – because you’re the only one who can ever get her to listen to reason  – and if she’d drunk less, she wouldn’t have ended up dipping in and out of consciousness on Shane’s bathroom floor, choking on her own vomit.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she sounds hurt. You feel terrible. Things really _are_ getting back to normal.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see her scooting around in her seat. Your grip on the wheel tightens once more, and you’re not sure why.

“You had enough of your own stuff going on,” you counter. “You didn’t need my crap too.”

It feels like a lie even though it isn’t.

“But Amy, that’s a huge moment in your life, and I should’ve known. You could’ve wrote me about it.”

She’s got you there. You could’ve, but how do you write something like that when she was going through the early stages of detox? How is your pain and her pain even remotely comparable? That final talk between you and Reagan happened an hour after Karma left for Belverde, looking small and nervous in the back of Bruce’s car, flanked by her parents. The symmetry of it isn’t lost on you.

“I know, I just didn’t want to talk to you about all that. You had to focus on getting better.”

She nods solemnly, taking off her sunglasses and placing them neatly on the dash. You know what’s coming next. “What happened that night, Amy? What _really_ happened? Your mom and my mom told me the highlights,” she laughs bitterly, “or the lowlights, but I need the truth.”

Dr Levin advised you to approach your discussions incrementally, never to push Karma to speak, but to always listen, no matter the time or place. You’re not entirely sure how you handle that in real terms, but you do know one thing: Highway 58 is no place for this. You swallow hard, vaguely relieved when you see a rest stop up ahead.

“Karma, we don’t have to do this now,” you remind her, gently.

“We do. I know you were there. I know it must be hard for you to talk about, but I ... ” she tails off, collecting herself, head tilted to roof of the car. “I have gaps … things I can’t remember.”

You nod sympathetically, desperate to comfort her somehow, but her hands are folded in her lap. It seems to take forever to get into the safety of the stop, where you can finally turn off the engine and just sit, but it’s nothing like when you sat on the hood of the car with her watching the sunrise while the ferry docked. Everything about her body is stiff and closed off. She’s preparing herself for whatever you say next. Before you do, she says something that hurts you, visceral and painful and without warning.

“I know what the doctor’s report says, Amy. I know how badly I fucked up, but I want to know what happened to you too,” she turns fully to you again, tears rolling down her cheeks, unbidden. She tries to sniff them back, but ends up swatting them away, voice cracking as she declares, “You’re the only person I trust to tell me the truth.”

“Karma, I don’t know if I can,” you admit, taking off your sunglasses because you want her to be able to look you in the eye.

You’re blinking back tears of your own, voice giving out, and you wish you could stop driving right now and hold her  – not cuddle her or hug her, you want to hold her,

and try your best to tell her the truth and absorb the pain she’s still carrying. The mix seems stupid now, even though The Weepies lyrics hit even harder than they did before. You reach to shut off the engine and unplug your phone, but the whoosh of a seatbelt and Karma’s hand on yours stops you.

“Let it play,” she says, half request, half warning. “Everything that’s there is for a reason isn’t it?”

All you can do is look at her, and when you do, it all comes back in a rush. Every horrible detail that you’ve tried to forget. You have no idea how you manage not to blurt it all out.

“I knew it would happen if I stopped looking out for you, but you kept pushing me away.”

She looks down at her lap, sheepish, and then back up, nodding for you to continue, but you can’t. It’s too vivid. You remember having to practically drag Reagan to the party because she had nothing in common with everyone else, and was sick of Karma derailing everything and monopolising your attention. You remember Shane rushing up to you, yelling over the music about needing your help and that you needed to come, and you followed obediently behind as he pushed past people, Reagan forgotten. You remember Duke, kicking at the bathroom door to break it down, and then, something you’ll never, ever forget: Karma, slumped next to the toilet, head cut, and that horrendous choking sound. You remember screaming at her to wake up, cradling her while Theo called 911. You remember arguing with Liam over how much she’d drunk, and whose fault it was that she was like this. You remember Lauren shooing people away and storming through the house with Shane to make people leave. You remember how small Karma looked when Duke carried her down the stairs to the EMTs when they arrived. You remember the look on Reagan’s face, framed in the window of the ambulance door when it closed and you left her behind standing next to Lauren. You remember the big EMT guy, Jeff, working on Karma. You remember the oxygen, and the needle sticks, and the rushed instructions to his partner when she started to choke again. You remember holding her hand the whole journey and telling her she’d be fine, not sure if she could even hear anything. You remember the rush of doctors and the gurney. You remember the fight with Reagan, word for word. You remember the crushing fear you felt when Reagan was gone and Karma was wheeled out of your sight. You remember running to the restroom kicking at the stall doors until you started to cry, and then you cried so much you threw up in the nearest sink, Shane rushing in to comfort you and tell you again and again that Karma was strong and she’d be fine.

That night wasn’t the first time he held you while you sobbed. For Karma. For Reagan. For the unholy mess you’d all made. That night was the first time you prayed since you were seven years old. It wasn’t the last.

But, you don’t tell her that, you can’t yet, maybe not ever.

“I was with you the whole time,” you begin, blinking back fresh tears. “I got to the bathroom with Shane first. I stayed with you. I just wanted to help you, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. Everyone was freaking out ... Liam, Shane, Lauren, Duke. All of us.”

“Oh, Amy, I’m so sorry.”

You’re both crying now, the ugly, terrible kind. It’s too much to look at her, and you’re straining against your seatbelt, trying to cling to her while that fucking _stupid_ Billy Joel song you forgot to take off plays out, suddenly too loud and too true. Karma’s always been that little wild girl, impatient to grow up. She’s the ‘crazy child’ Billy’s still somehow singing about because you can’t bear to let go of her. It’s her and Lucas’ little anthem, her life advice, but what Lucas thought was crazy for Karma when she was six is nothing compared to what happened at seventeen.

“I was so mad at you,” you continue, cradling Karma’s face in your hands. “But I was terrified of losing you too. Listening to you breathing, listening to those machines beeping in the ambulance and the hospital. I prayed they’d never stop.”

It hurts to talk, and it hurts to breathe all of a sudden. You can’t tell her any more. You just can’t.

“Half of me wanted to slap the shit out of you, because you made –  you make  – me so fucking angry, but I couldn’t, because the other, bigger half of me wanted to hold you, and protect you, and keep you safe. It killed me that I couldn’t do that.”

“I’m so sorry I hurt you,” she manages between sobs, “I never meant to.”

“It’s not your fault, Karma. It’s not.”

She touches your face gently, brushing away the tears that have fallen. You close your eyes and try to breathe, to slow everything down and be strong for her again, instead of this babbling, useless mess. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

“Never, ever. You’re the last person I wanted to do that to,” there’s a desperate edge to her voice and you hate it.

The seatbelt is starting to cut in now, and you need it gone, it’s keeping you from Karma.  You press at it frantically until it stops jamming and reach for her, pulling her as close as the confines of the car allows. It’s not close enough.

“I know,” you reply, shushing her and stroking her hair while she cries, clinging to you tightly.

“Please forgive me?” she asks, pulling away to look at you, making sure you know she means it.

“Of course,” you breathe, shaking your head, because how could you not? She means the world to you.

Before you realise what’s happening, Karma’s lips are on yours, brushing lightly. She pulls away just as quickly, and you’re afraid she’s going to bolt and you’ll be left chasing her down the highway for miles because she’s freaking out. But, when she looks at you, there’s no fear there at all, only love, the purest love you’ve ever seen. You can’t help it, when you move forward, tilt her head up, and kiss her again; gently, carefully, your hands sliding into her hair. She kisses back, but it feels different. The way she leans up is different, the pressure of her lips is different; curious, wanting, desperate. The way she turns her head, just so, opening her mouth fractionally wider, short circuits your brain. Then, you realise, as she grabs your shirt, fistful of material in her hand, pulling you closer and deepening the kiss all on her own: it’s real. This is happening. Karma’s kissing you, you’re kissing Karma, and it’s real. Deep and passionate, and very _very,_ real.

You never want it to stop.


	4. Sweet Dreams [Karma]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Things are changing between you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For general story notes see [chapter one](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4824179/chapters/11047760). Sorry for the delay in updating, I think – I hope – you’ll think it’s worth it. The changing of emotional gear throughout this chapter was difficult to pull off, and while I love some sweet, fluffy Karmy, I also want to try and remain true to the experience both girls are currently going through outside of their feelings for each other. Fingers crossed I managed it. Thank you to everyone who has given kudos and taken the time to comment. Your continued support keeps me writing!

**IV: Things You Said When You Thought I Was Asleep**

 

_“I got you some iced tea. There’s extra lemon and honey, just how you like it.”_

You look up from your position on the bed and smile. She’s been gone longer than you thought, so you’ve ended up stretched out on your front with her laptop in front of you, scrolling through the photos she has stored on there, wondering what the difference is between those smiling, baby-faced girls on the screen and the girls you’ve become. A lot, you’ve concluded, right before she walked back in. She hovers briefly in the doorway, smiling at you softly, before turning up the dimmer switch on the wall, so the room’s just a touch brighter than before; enough for her to see while she picks her way carefully across the room to place the cup down on the nightstand. Iced tea is your favourite drink, and she made it in what’s now become your favourite cup.

Yes, you’ve been here long enough to have a favourite cup.

You both know this is about more than iced tea and favourite cups. It makes things more special. Whatever those things actually are.

“Thanks,” you reply, shyly, touched by her thoughtfulness.

This is the mode you’re in now. Everything is special. Everything is wonderful. Amy is frequently both those things at once. Usually, you’d feel compelled to clear the air and talk about what happened, but not this time, you’ve just been content to be close to her and enjoy her company. It seems fine not to question that closeness. For now.

“You’re welcome,” she shrugs, like it’s nothing. “I made it, so sorry if it sucks. I don’t have Lois’ skills,” she continues, settling herself on the bed next to you and leaning over to see what’s left of the dwindling Netflix queue. “I thought it might help you sleep, but that’s not likely,” she scoffs, motioning toward the door.

Right on queue, Joanie’s loud, rumbling, unmistakable laughter drifts up from downstairs. She, Amy’s nana - you still can’t get used to calling her Gwen; even after all your surprisingly insightful late night chats sitting together in the porch swing - and Lois have been playing cards and gossiping for hours. OK, so they’re loud and annoying, and you’re probably risking hearing loss from having to push the volume on Amy’s laptop so high, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn't matter because it means things are normal. That they’ve finally stopped tiptoeing around you, terrified that you’ll break into a thousand pieces at the slightest thing, and they’re treating you like Karma again. It’s harder for Amy, and you know that, and you don’t hold it against her. You’re not cured by any means, but you’re not the girl you were when you left for Belverde. You’re not even the girl who arrived here in Beaufort with Amy a month ago, fresh off the flight, loaded down with too-heavy rucksacks and nervous energy following an awkward car journey with Lois, trying desperately to avoid the elephant in the room.

Gwen, Lois, and Joanie mean even more to you now than they did before, their raucous noise has been your soundtrack all day, settled in with Amy for a movie marathon while you waited out the late summer storms. They’re equally loud and kind of amazing, but she’s scared of the thunder and lightning, preferring to burrow away and hide. Once you had movies to distract her, she wasn’t so anxious anymore, and their laughter and chatter has been an even greater comfort, seeing you both all the way through a giggly sing-along revisit of _High School Musical_ , supplemented by Amy making snarky comments about everyone and everything, certain she was purely “enduring it for your sake.” It didn’t look like too much of a hardship when she would quietly sing whenever they’d burst into song. Then, she let you choose again while she got some of Joanie’s famous chocolate cake, and you ended up sharing a slice over _The Notebook_. She was official tissue giver, and sat with her arm around you to comfort you. She denied crying, but you wiped the telltale tears away without a word every time. You wondered about Noah and Allie, and the strength of their love. You wondered if you and Amy could get that. You wondered why you feel so at peace, and so comfortable with her fingers softly running through your hair until you moved and made her self-conscious. You never talked about how the feel of her fingertips brushing accidentally against your skin when you leant forward to rewind your favourite part - “If you're a bird, I'm a bird” - felt like your whole body was electrified in the worst way, and the best way. You’d like to talk about it now, but you’re not sure where to start, or even if you should. The last movie of the day, Amy’s pick, is one you’ve seen a million times, _Easy A_. There’s ten or so minutes left, but you’re pretty sure you could recite the whole thing verbatim and not even blink.  It makes her laugh so much you don’t even care.

(her laughter, you’ve belatedly realised, is your favourite thing in the world).

You pass her laptop back, happy for her to take charge, and resume your position against the pillows. She’s plumped them without notice, and your heart does that all-too-familiar fluttering that usually happens whenever she walks into the room. It’s happening a lot lately. You distract yourself with the iced tea, fine to let it slide for now. Not exactly honest, but today’s been another good day, and you don’t want to tempt fate and ruin things.

You’re still recovering from the fact you made it through a whole beach party with Garrett and his friends pretty much unscathed. Truthfully, you’re not sure you would’ve left the house for anything except long cycle rides and diner food if it wasn’t for Amy’s encouragement, assuring you she’d be there the whole time, and you’d take ginger beer so you could blend in and not feel weird. True to her word, she did stay, fingers laced with yours all the while. You thought things might be awkward between you and Garrett, but it wasn’t at all. After hellos and hugs, it was like you’d never been away. They were kind and supportive, asking if they could drink before they did. There weren’t too many questions after that, and you’re glad of it. No one pushed you into anything, and it was nice just to hang out like you all used to. It was fun, and you thought you’d forgotten what that was, or how that could happen without orange juice laced with vodka, or sly sips of Bruce’s bourbon from the cabinet in his office.

After the others drifted off, it was just you, Amy, Garrett, and his best friend Todd, chatting around the fire, toasting marshmallows. You didn’t mind that it devolved into something more like a middle school sleepover, thanks to Todd and his stupid jokes, and even stupider urban myth stories that scare the shit out of Amy making her cling to you that little bit tighter. He’s an idiot, and he never stops hitting on either of you, but you’re glad he became a part of your little summer group, replacing Zen when he got “too old” to play kids games. It must’ve seemed pretty tame for what’s likely going to be one of your last parties before everyone goes their separate ways: Garrett to Birmingham-Southern for lacrosse, Todd to Boston College to play ball, while you and Amy head back to Austin for senior year. It’s the first time Garrett and Todd will be apart, it was all you could think of, even while Amy was talking excitedly about her hopes for Clement.

(they called her a nerd and she blushed furiously while flipping them both off. You whispered that she was adorable, and her blush deepened)

It’s a dream you’ve both held onto for so long - Amy’s dream, your dream, your dream together - but right now it feels far away. You want - no, you need - to believe that you can still make it happen for the both of you.

Later, happier, bolder, you risked long glances at Amy when she looked up at the sky mesmerised by the brief display of fireworks Garrett set off in honour of your ‘return to the real world.’ Later still, you kissed her on the cheek while she was distracted by the show.

(her smile when she realised was more brilliant and beautiful than any of those fireworks).

A few days ago, you weren’t so sure that Garrett was right, but now you are. Everything is starting to fit into place again, and you’re starting to trust in your own decisions.

You called Zen that night and talked to him for the first time since you left the retreat. You don’t want his lasting memory of you to be when you were sobbing down the phone days into your detox, pleading with him to come and get you with the brief time you were allowed to talk. He reasoned with you and calmed you down, playing the same old records down the line that turned up on Amy’s mixtape. It was a small gesture, but you needed it more that you’d like to admit. Truthfully, you feel closer to him for it, and you don’t want that closeness to disappear once you’re back home.

(for once, you’re glad he didn’t give in to you like when you were little, still learning what it meant to be brother and sister)

“So, what’s the verdict?” she asks, shuffling back and placing the laptop between you.

“All those shifts at The Twain haven’t been wasted,” you reply, smiling at her conspiratorially. “You can add barista to your neverending list of talents.”

“Don’t forget the art of yo-yo,” she reminds you, holding up a finger.

“Tragically overlooked,” you laugh.

She nods, beaming. “See, you always understand. Thank you!”

You haven’t seen her like that for a long time, and you know you’re staring now because she blushes, turns her attention to her laptop, and restarts the movie.

“Back to Emma?” she says, half statement, half question.

“Sure,” you nod, sipping idly on your drink.

Her nervous reply of, “cool,” is addressed to the screen instead of you.

Suddenly, the room feels heavy with a tension you can’t name. You only ever feel it with her.

She’s always known you, inside out, upside down, but now you’re certain that knowing is different. Things are changing between you, and it’s terrifying in its own way, but then, there’s a comfort about the closeness you’ve regained. The lines have been blurred between you both for a long time, and you’ve both fought so hard to try and redraw them. Ever since Atlantic Beach, you haven’t felt the need to try. You’re comfortable now, nearing a place most people would call happy. There are twin beds in this room, but yours hasn’t been slept in, apart from the very first night. You woke in a cold sweat from another lurid nightmare, and she was there at your side, pulling you out of it with gentle words and an even gentler embrace, shielding you from the lingering images and vague fragments of conversations you don’t remember having. She stayed with you that night and every night since. You started dropping the dose of your sleeping pills two weeks ago because she worked better than they ever could.

You study her profile instead of the screen, see the laughter bloom on her face before you hear the sound. The tea is gone, the last movie in your triple bill marathon is almost over, and you’re still wired. Maybe dropping the dose on those pills was a bad idea. The blank fuzziness they bring used to be bliss, because it meant you could block out the how and the why of what led to you passing out on Shane’s bathroom floor. They’re big things, dark, unwieldy things that Sally dragged out of you during your therapy sessions. It’s on your list to tell Amy, sooner rather than later, but you know it’ll hurt her to hear it. She’s not ready. You’re not ready.

“Are you OK?” she asks suddenly, and you realise that the credits are rolling.

“Actually,” you begin, “not really,” you look down at your empty iced tea, wondering why it’s not working its usual magic.

“Oh, OK,” she’s trying not to look concerned, but fails spectacularly.

Before you can say anything more, the laptop’s been moved on to the floor, and she’s scooted closer, taking the cup out of your hands and reaching over to put it back on the nightstand.

“Don’t pull the panic cord,” you assure her, smiling a little. “Please?”

You want to kiss her again, just to soothe her evident worry, chasing away her frown, but you’re afraid to.

“Sorry,” she glances down at her lap, guiltily. “Habit.”

The moment she says it, you feel terrible, and things aren’t so normal now. When did this become her default? How is it natural and fine for her to panic like this? You want the smiles and the laughter back. You want her to see you as Karma again, instead of some broken little bird she has to tend to.

“I’m fine, I’m just …” you tail off, sighing deeply. It’s a conversation you can start, but not finish. Not yet. “I’m too wired. There’s no way I can sleep yet.”

Her relief is palpable.

“Well, we could always do what we did when we were little?” she’s brightened considerably, and you already know where this is going.

She reaches behind her to the stack of pillows and there’s the faintest trace of a smile on her lips. “How about a little pillow fight, Ashcroft?” she says, wiggling a pillow from side to side. “Please?” she pouts for good measure.

“Fine!” you reply, taking a pillow for yourself anyway.  She gives a little triumphant cheer. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

“I know, what can I do?” she shrugs.

“I like ridiculous.”

That’s not quite true. You like her adorable, sweet, clumsy kind of ridiculous. The way she’s looking at you - in that same soft way as when she stood in the doorway, like you’re the greatest thing she’s ever seen - it’s easy to imagine you said a different three words to her instead.

“Anyway, it’s not _that_ ridiculous, because,” she pauses for effect, “Karma sweetheart, it’s excellent for realigning your chakras!” she continues, imitating your mom perfectly.

You jump in finishing the sentence with her at the same time, “And gets rid of gets rid excess nervous energy that interrupts restful sleep!” 

The rest of what you’re both saying gets lost in a fit of laughter. God, you’ve missed this. You’ve missed what it’s been like before everything got complicated, and weird, and you could just hang out together, without drama or worry. A large part of you knows those complications, dramas, and worries are your fault.

“I do need to defend my title,” you remind her, when you’ve recovered some.

“You do,” she nods, holding out her hand for you to take. “I also need to break something expensive, or my ankle, whatever happens first. Then it’s truly been a summer in Beaufort!”

“Ugh, Amy don’t bring up 2009, it still makes me kind of queasy,” you protest, feeling your stomach flutter oddly at the memory.

“That vase was killer expensive, sucked up all my paper route money.”

“Not that you idiot!” you exclaim, tapping her lightly on the arm.

“Oh, the ankle thing?” is all she says, like it was nothing at all.  “I do have a cool scar though, it looks like shark bite now, don’t you think?”

She looks down at it, and points her foot toward you, like you have haven’t seen it a million times before. Your memories of it aren’t so fond, mostly because you remember an eleven year old version of her screaming the house down, followed by weeks of crutches, physical therapy, and a premature end to her softball career, that was soothed only by eating more jello and ice cream than is probably legal.

“Totally looks like one,” you reply, playfully, tapping her on the head with the pillow.

“Hey! That’s not fair!” she cries, “I wasn’t ready!”

“You forget the free hit rule,” you tease. “The last time we played this, you said I got a free hit because you were taller. It’s not my fault puberty turned you into an Amazon!”

“Well, if we’re being fair, you should take two hits, maybe even three,” she laughs, stepping closer to you, measuring the height difference with her hand. “Actually, it’s more like four. Maybe I should give you a bed jump head start too, Thumbelina?” she continues, motioning toward the empty bed that serves as your ‘mercy’ spot.

“Ha, ha,” you swat at her with the pillow. There’s no real power behind it.

“You sure this is a pillow fight? That’s just tickling me, Karm. You’ve gotten weak!” she mocks, playful.

“Fuck you!” you reply, incredulous, hitting her a little harder.

“Oh, there she is! Out for blood!”

You both trade blows, missing more than you hit, until you get one decent swing in, and you hear her gasp at it.

“Gotta catch me first, Gigantor!” you call, taking your head start and jumping across to the next bed before she can get another hit in.

“Oh, that’s it, you’re dead now Ashcroft, that was low.”

“Fighting talk!”

You give chase, running circles around the room, over and across the beds, round and around, trading blows, laughing so much your sides ache and there are tears streaming down your face.  When you catch sight of yourselves in the mirror on the opposite wall, you half expect to see five-year-old you, on the very first summer you came here with Amy, when her parents were still together, you wore your hair in pigtails, playing Wendy to Amy’s Peter Pan. Any moment, you expect Farrah to burst in and yell at you for jumping on the beds. Except, you don’t see that. When you blink again, those little girls are gone. You’re seventeen, flushed and breathless, with your hair stuck out every which way, in mismatched tanks and sleep shorts. You’re not Wendy, and Amy’s Peter Pan hat is stuffed in a box in the attic, and Farrah won’t be coming to yell. A sudden wave of sadness rushes you because there’s so much history in this house, in this room, and you don’t want to leave it ever. It’s your safe place from the rest of the world. Population: two persons. As quickly as it came over you, it’s gone, mostly because Amy crashes face first on to the mattress next to you, making you laugh, full and loud.  It’s stupid, and if anyone were to come in now you’d be mortified, but with her, you don’t care. She loves you serious, she loves you stupid. She loves you happy, she loves you sad. She loves you for who you are.

“Truce for a sec!” she declares dramatically when she sits up. “I’m too old for this shit!” she continues, breathlessly, before attempting to take another swing.

You duck at the right moment, so she misses completely. “We’re both too old for this shit, but I don’t really care.”

“Me either.”

You go for it at the same time, getting faster and faster. Nearly all the filling in your pillow has sunk down to the end you’re attacking Amy with. You’re both on your knees now, making exaggerated moves like you’re fencing.

“Gotcha!” you yell, swinging the pillow as hard as you can.

As soon as it hits her, the seam pops, sending feathers everywhere.

“Oww, fuck!” she cries, and for a second, you feel guilty. “You’re dangerous. You burst the fucking pillow!”

“Nana’s gonna kill me,” you reply, slowly, both watching the feathers rain down.

For a moment, you think you’ve stopped breathing. She’s laughing at you, talking away about how much her nana _won’t_ kill you at all, looking up at the feathers falling all around her, landing on her hair. All you can think is how incredibly beautiful she looks. The feathers remind you of the beach fireworks, and then, the confetti canon in the gym, when she kissed you in front of everyone, nervously clinging to the back of your dress. Then, it hits you, clearly and suddenly: you love her. You’re _in_ love with her.

“Reigning champ!” she declares, crawling over to you and raising your arm up.

“What do I win?” you ask, closing the small distance between you, fixing her hair and picking out the feathers. You’re surprised by how confident you sound, you’re really not at all.

She’s close enough for you to hear the shuddering breath she lets out. It’s not even any kind of answer, but it’s enough for you to want to be closer. She tilts her head down, meeting you in the middle. Your hands frame her face, studying her carefully for any sign that she might not want this - you’re certain she does - because kissing her in that rest stop until you practically couldn’t breathe anymore is all you can think about doing. It’s all you want to do now. Except, it feels different in this room. All the history weighs heavily.

“Kiss me, Karma,” she says, softly.

“I want to,” you say, quietly, almost embarrassed you said it out loud.

“So do it.”

There’s a longing, a want, in her voice you’ve only ever heard once- in that cheap motel room with the bad lighting.

It’s enough.

You thread your arms around her neck for balance, and you press your lips to hers, brief, but insistent. A test. She kisses back, careful at first, but it builds quickly, trading pecks back and forth, each longer than the last. You’re sitting at an awkward angle, more off the bed than on it, but you keep going anyway. It feels too good not to.

“Come here,” she murmurs, pulling you back toward her, hands resting on your hips. You let out little shriek of surprise at it, and she breaks the kiss.

You expect her to say something, to slow this down or stop completely, but she doesn't. Instead, she tilts your head up, thumb tracing the shape of your mouth, before kissing you again. Before you can react, show her how much you really want this, she proves the same to you, her kisses drifting away from your mouth to trace a path along your jaw, dotting haphazard kisses there. You close your eyes, and your head falls back, and she moves to kiss your neck, slower and more deliberate, her teeth grazing the skin sometimes, only to soothe the same spot with the barest flick of her tongue. She repeats her path in reverse, slowing it down until she’s back where she started, and you’re kissing full on the mouth; with this languid deepness you didn’t even know existed. It feels like your whole body is unravelling in the best way. Your hands fall away to your sides, and you’re not sure what to do with them. Everything about how she moves, how she’s touching you - her hands sliding up your sides - feels so natural, so gentle, that you don’t even notice that she’s guiding you back to the mattress until you’re there, and she has one hand cradling the back of your head. This is going to be much more than the car. For once, you’re not afraid.

Your heart is speeding in your chest for all the right reasons.

She straddles you then, carefully lowering her body so it’s almost flush with yours, and you moan - it's loud, too loud really - at the contact. When she pulls back to look at you, her face is flushed in a way you can only think is pretty. She’s staring at you in a way she never has before, and it just makes you want her more. You grab the back of her head, threading your fingers into her hair, pulling her down to kiss you. When your mouths connect, it’s harder, with an almost desperate edge. You swallow down her surprised little whimper, smiling into the next kiss. There’s a delicious slip-slide to the way you’re kissing now, less co-ordinated, less graceful, but _God_ , you want her to keep going, keep kissing. Keep doing all of this. You’re desperate for more than kisses too. You want to touch her and taste her and not have it be in some lurid dream. You want to feel it. You want to feel _her_. Impulsively, you move forward, sitting up and reaching for her tank, grasping at the hem and lifting it just a little, sliding your hands underneath. You stall there, nervous, barely touching the small of her back, wondering if she’s going to pull away, or tell you to stop, but she doesn’t. There’s only more kissing; brief pecks so you can get air.

“Take it off,” she whispers, right in your ear when you turn your head, and she attacks - yes, attacks, that’s the only word you can think of - your neck, kissing harder than before, teeth nipping with more purpose.

It’s your turn to groan.

You do as she says, waiting for her to lean back to give you access. For a moment, you’re torn between yanking at it off at once, and moving more slowly so it lasts longer. The latter option wins out, and your gaze wanders from her face back to her body as it's revealed to you in an endless loop. She smiles, encouraging, patient, when everything about her says she wants to do so much more than this, so much faster.

“Let me,” she says, so quietly you’re not sure she actually said it out loud.

Then, it’s off and gone, a blur of green material flying off into a distant corner of the room, and she’s there in the sports bra she’s slept in forever, and those little shorts, and you can’t _breathe_.

“Wow,” is all you can manage, and her smile widens. “How do?… You’re Amy.”

It’s ridiculous thing to say, and she laughs shyly, but really, how does she even look like that?

You’ve had a mental image of her and what she looks like burned into your memory ever since the threesome, but she looks different. Even more beautiful. The only clear thought you have before she’s reaching for you - wrapping her arms around you, so you can do nothing _but_ feel all that all that warm skin and those flat, perfect abs that half the cheerleading squad would commit murder for - is this: you should’ve been braver and you should’ve stayed in that motel room. Then, you don’t have room for any thoughts at all, because she’s kissing you, soft and slow.

You sigh into her mouth, hips unconsciously lifting to meet hers. Amy starts to grind down against you, kissing harder and faster, with this _hunger_ you’ve never ever felt before. You reach up, instinctively pulling her down, so there’s no space between you at all. She groans at the change, and all you want to do is hear it again, louder and longer. So, you risk something that you have a vague (or not so vague) recollection of from back when you were making that _stupid_ lesbian dossier for Amy. Slowly, you lift your thigh, pressing it up between both of hers, hoping the angle is right. There is a another groan, longer and louder, followed by a breathy, “Jesus, Karma,” so you do it again, pressing up when she grinds down, and you’re not really sure what it’s doing, but it’s doing _something_ because her grip on you tightens.

But then, something happens. The room feels different, the air cooler. She breaks the kiss abruptly, and untangles herself from you, before adding, “I can’t.”

“Wh-what?” you stutter, completely thrown.

She’s up, off the bed, looking for her tank, running a hand through her hair. “I can’t, Karma. Not now,” it’s firm and clear, said as she snatches her shirt up and pulls it quickly back on, like she’s ashamed.

“What did I do?” you ask, sitting up, moving towards the edge of the bed and attempting to straighten out your clothes. You’re ashamed too.

“Nothing,” she snaps, distractedly, looking everywhere but at you.

You want the other Amy back.

“Don’t you want me?”

That was meant to be a thought just for your head or, more likely, your journal, except you said it out loud and it sounds even more pathetic now that you have. Why would she? You’ve done nothing but hurt her and reject her love. You’re selfish and shallow. She could do better. She _had_ better, until you managed to get in the way of her and Reagan too. To top it off, you’re a recovering addict, and she’s done everything she can to help you get better, practically putting her life on hold to do it.

She turns to face you at last. “I shouldn’t have let it get that far,” she looks so concerned, so serious, like she’s broken an unwritten rule or trespassed somewhere, with no signs to show it.

“But you wanted it,” you argue, jumping to your feet, meeting her in the middle of room. “I know you did Amy,” and then, because you can, and the sting of being rejected is fresh. “I know when you’re lying, remember?”

A cheap shot.

She puffs out a long breath and glances away. “Yeah, you do.” When she looks back, her face is different, softer. “Karm,” she begins, taking your hand and walking you back to the bed. “It’s not because I don’t want you, don’t ever think that,” she continues, choosing her words carefully. The steely edge in her voice is gone, back to its former calmness. “It’s because I want you too much, if I keep kissing you, I’ll never stop … and you’re not ready for what happens after that,” a small chuckle follows. “I’m not ready.”

You stay silent, not sure what to say, because it’s not what you expected. After everything you’ve done, she could be forgiven for giving a taste of your own medicine. In the end, all you do is nod, because she’s right. You don’t want to rush this and waste it like every other time you’ve had sex. Except, this wouldn’t _just_ be sex and you know both it. So many emotions are bound up in her, and with her, that you’d be doing much more than that. You don’t like the phrase ‘making love’ because it fires off your mom’s talk about ‘unions of the soul.’ These days, that’s more likely to trigger your gag reflex than make you swoon like it did when you were a young, naive, tween, but for once, you think she wasn’t all that far off. It would feel that way with Amy, and that’s why you need to hold off.

“We need time,” you admit, quietly.

“You’re worth waiting for,” she whispers, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead.

“So are you,” you reply, sincerely, and she smiles shyly at you.

Sometimes you forget how long she’s waited to hear you say these kinds of things.

“We should get some sleep,” she suggests, a moment later. “It’s late.”

“That’s a good idea,” you say, even though you’re not tired at all.

In fact, you’ve never been more awake.

She stands, still holding your hand, and it takes a long time until you let it go, finger by finger. You watch her cross the room, knowing exactly what she’ll do because it’s her routine, and it’s comforting to watch her as she goes through it. First, the nightstand lamp on her side of the bed gets turned on. Next, she shuts down her laptop, crossing the room to set it on the desk-turned-dressing table in the corner. Then, she fills the tumbler on your nightstand with bottled water, because she knows you’re always thirsty in the morning. Her last step is always to switch off the other lights, so you’re still in darkness. You keep up your half of the routine too, shaking out pillows, trading the burst one for another from the mercy bed. You work together then, comfortable to hide in that same routine when you remake the bed, smoothing the sheet and turning back the light summer blanket you’ve both slept under since you were children, and top-and-tail turned into cuddles.

It’s only then that it occurs to you that she might not be able to share that bed.

“Should we?” she asks at the same time you say, “Do you want to?” and you both laugh at your awkwardness. You can barely look at her when you ask again anyway, “Are you sure it’s OK to be in the same bed?”

“I think I can restrain myself, Karm,” she replies with a wry smile.

“I am irresistible you know,” you joke.

(the girl who said that feels a long way from who you are now)

“Oh, Karm,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“I had to.”

You like jokes. Jokes remind you of times before this. Jokes mean everything’s OK, and the world didn’t stop just because you both put the brakes on this … relationship for now. It’s just a pause. You hope it’s just a pause.

There’s an awkward moment where you’re not sure how to lie, or even if you should face each other. There’s no playfulness or tucking each other in. There’s nothing really. In the end, you turn on your side away from her and she from you, because it's clear neither of you can stand the fact that there’s only a few inches of space separating you. It wouldn’t take a lot, to reach out and take her hand to bridge that gap, but even that is too much right now.

“Night, Karm,” she calls, sweetly, after a moment.

“Night,” you echo.

Then, the room falls silent. It doesn’t feel right. You always lie together and talk for an hour, sometimes more, in lieu of lullabies and bedtime stories because you’re far too old for those things. You miss her next to you already. You miss her arms around you, and you miss her stroking your hair to help you drift off to sleep. That works, but it's her voice that does it, there’s a warmth to it, a melody that you just want to sink into and drown in. You miss hearing her silly stories and pitches for pilots that will never get made. You miss her outline elaborate plans for the next day that you rarely manage to achieve.

It doesn’t feel right to ask anything of her right now. Things are fragile. You have a lot of questions, but the real reason behind why she’s not ready is plaguing you the most - is it because you’re broken? Because you made her wait far too long? Or all of those things and none of those things, because you’ve never truly understood why she loves you as much as she does. Amy’s feelings are the only thing you could never doubt. They're unshakable.

(at least you thought so).

Mostly though, you’re thinking about the kisses you’ve shared, and how much they stir in you that you don’t know what to do with. She makes you feel awake, and alive, and _so_ wanted. That’s kind of terrifying to think about, and you’re not sure how to put it into words without it _being_ terrifying either, so you haven’t found the right ones yet. You could tell Amy all of this instead of staring at a spot on the wall, and churning it over in your mind, but it’s still too hard.

“What the fuck am I doing?” you hear her say, barely above a whisper. “I mean what do you need? A fucking invitation, Amy? … God, how could you think I don’t want you, Karma? … How wrong can she get? I’ve never stopped wanting her … That’s the problem.”

She thinks you’re asleep.

You listen and wait, trying to keep as still as you can, so she doesn't know you’re wide-awake.

“You chase after this for years, and now you get it and you push her away? You’re fucking stupid … so stupid. You’ve dreamt of stuff like this … of exactly what happened tonight, and you waste it.”

The blanket pulls and you feel her weight shift. She’s closer than she was before.

“Why did I stop it? It’s the last thing I wanted.”

Her hand brushes your back accidentally when she moves again, and you don’t know how you stay still. Suddenly, what happened before makes a lot more sense. She didn’t want to stop, she just did it to protect you, like she always does. If turning over and kissing her wasn’t a monumentally bad idea, you’d do it, because she deserves it. She cares about you in a way so few people do.

“Oh fuck … I don’t know,” she sighs, frustrated. “It’s fine while we’re here in Beaufort. It’s _always_ fine. If we could transfer to Beaufort High School I would … we’d be away from all that toxic bullshit,” another sigh. “Stop being so stupid. You have to go back.”

That last part hits home. The idea of being anywhere but here with Amy, as close as you’ve become, seems ridiculous. You have no idea how this new-improved you will fit in at Hester, or even if you can.

“It’d be so easy to say yes to all this. To just go there, but _God,_ if anything happened … I can’t watch her go through all this again. I love her too much for that.”

It’s been a long time since you’ve heard her say that out loud. The fact that your heart flutters at it is both reassuring, and, in its own way, horrifying.

She’s getting more upset as she talks to herself, trying to work through and justify everything in a typical Amy way. She’s trying to do right by you, and not hurt you, even if it’s at the expense of her own happiness. You know she’s right. You have the capacity to destroy each other.

(you know that all too well)

“Then there’s Hester and all the Karmy bullshit!” she’s angrier now, her voice raising briefly, until she remembers you and quiets. Then, there's the telltale sound of her sniffing back tears. “I’m scared of leaving here and dropping us into all that crap. I want this so much. I want to be with her. We could be so happy together. I could make her so happy and … fuck.”

It takes all your will not to move and not to cry, gripping the blanket to stop yourself from reaching for her. It’s killing you to hear her like this. You can feel her eyes on the back of your head, and you want to turn over and talk to her, but you can’t. She can’t know you’ve been listening. It feels like there’s more, that she hasn’t exorcised everything. You want to comfort her, and tell her everything will be fine, that she’ll never hurt you, that you’ll never relapse, and you’ll be in love forever, but you can’t do that either. You can’t because it's a promise you’ll never be able to keep, and you’ve broken so many where Amy’s concerned.

“I’d rather be her friend than have nothing at all … I can’t lose her again …”

She puts her hand over her mouth to muffle her sobbing, and that’s the exact moment your heart breaks. It breaks because you want to tell her she’s wrong to try and sacrifice herself like this again. It breaks because you and Amy are all or nothing. A one time deal. If you make the leap with her, that’s it. You know it. It sounds cliché because you’re seventeen years old, and everyone tells you that teenagers know nothing about love. You thought you knew what it was. You thought it was in romantic movies and novels. You thought it was in fairytales with handsome princes and ivory towers. You thought it was in magazines and Liam ‘teen dream’ Booker. It’s not, it’s in _her_. It’s in every little thing she does for you.

No one will ever love you like she can.

You know everything she’s said is right, that there are a thousand reasons why you shouldn’t be thinking about what it would be like to be hers. No lies, no faking, no take backs, but there are another thousand reasons why you should. When you’re together, you feel a happiness and a safety you never have with other people. There’s something between you, but you also know that you have a whole decade worth of friendship that you need to protect first. There’s no need to barricade, exactly, or make some complicated fortress, but you do need to make sure you’re certain, and neither of you are sure how all of that can work yet, but you do know friendship isn’t nearly enough anymore.. You’re almost there. Tonight proved it. You’re so close to being the girl Amy’s always seen, and proving her wrong once and for all.

Except, you need time. That and the hope that Amy will wait for you just a little longer. You’re not sure you have a great deal of either.


	5. Darkest Fears [Amy]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“This is the way you love her.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For general story notes see [chapter one](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4824179/chapters/11047760). So, here it is, the end! Thank you for all the comments, kudos and feedback on this story. It’s been so awesome and rewarding to see you enjoy and engage with the world I created and the versions of Karma and Amy that put within it. I can’t say how much it means, or properly put into words how much I enjoyed writing this. Shout-out to spasticandviolent for helping me make the best version of this story and pushing me to write better when it wasn’t quite there. Its all the better for your input. Thank you! For reasons which will become apparent, this was tough to pitch emotionally speaking, because there’s a _lot_ going on, but I hope your investment pays off. I also suggest you don’t read latter parts of this in a public place … Happy reading!

**V: Things You Said When You Were Scared**

 

_“I’m going to miss this.”_

You sigh, opening your eyes slowly to see Karma looking down at you. She’s right, you will miss the fact that you don’t have to worry about gossip, class schedules, and your mother’s insane demands for family time that almost always seem to clash with your perfectly reasonable plans to spend time with Karma. You won’t, however, miss this heat. At all. On days like this, moving somewhere cold like Alaska, Antarctica, or even going to see Karma’s (even weirder) aunt Lydia in Calgary seems like a stellar idea. Screw Global Warming.

The fact that your nana’s gone on a date – she says it’s not, but you’ve seen Mr Willis, sorry, Jack, around here way too many times for it not to count – so you both have the place to yourselves for the night should be cause for celebration. You’re out on the porch, stargazing, sitting (or in your case lying) together on the swing with your head in Karma’s lap while she strokes your hair, which is pretty much the perfect end to a perfect day, because you went on a ‘not date’ tonight with her too. It wasn’t planned really, you just went to avoid cooking in your nana’s absence (even though Karma’s ridiculously good at it). But, once you were back at the bistro, in that little corner booth with the soft lighting, with Karma in a pretty dress with the barest hint of makeup, sharing bites of dinner and dessert, and talking in even softer tones, it felt like a date. A real, no faking date. It even ended with a walk home and a silly chaste kiss on the porch steps like you were in some cheesy teen movie.

Karma seems to bring it out in you - romantic gestures and heartfelt speeches. If this were anyone else, and you were on the outside looking in, most things you say or do in her presence would be a serious test of your gag reflex. You always thought romance was sappy and pathetic. Now, you just think that no one else was worth the expression of feeling. Tonight, you’ve had a taste of what it would be like if you finally decided to be together – if you and Karma were actually girlfriends, not just friends who are girls – and you really like it. A little too much. You’re not sure if she feels the same, but you don’t want to jinx it by asking. The balance feels delicate.

You were all ready for your nightly Netflix binge, but you can’t snuggle – you and Karma do snuggle – in heat like this. Even with all the windows open, it was oppressive, and the ceiling fan just seemed to re-circulate warm air, nothing about it was cold, and your nana refuses to shell out for AC out of principle (what principle exactly, she’s yet to elaborate upon). Karma suggested the porch in the hope that being outside would bring some relief, but so far, nada. There’s no breeze to speak of.

It vaguely crosses your mind that it might be possible to die of heatstroke. At night.

“Oh, I’m definitely gonna miss feeling like I’m living in Satan’s asshole,” you declare, wiping the back of your hand across your forehead, irritated. Usually, you find her stroking your hair incredibly soothing, but the contact brings further heat and it feels like you’re about to spontaneously combust.

“Amy!” she exclaims, with a slightly girly shriek, like she’s never heard you talk like that before.

(she has. A lot)

“What? It’s true! You might be able to work that whole boho chic thing and look really gorgeous, but it makes me go all crazy and I can’t sleep. You know how I get without sleep.”

“I do,” she replies, sympathetic, leaning down to kiss your forehead lightly. You’re not about to complain about that though. Karma kissing you is _always_ a good thing.

“For the record, you work that surfer girl thing very well. In spite of your dislike for bathing suits.”

You smile, and you know it probably looks idiotic, but you don’t care. It’s too hot to worry over whether your face looks shiny or your hair is frizzy.

(you’ve spent too much time around Karma and _Cosmo_ )

“You think I’m gorgeous?”

There’s a playfulness in her question that’s never been there before. She’s asked you that a thousand times, but this time it feels different. It’s not about sadness over girls at school or pensiveness in front of the mirror when she’s putting together an outfit. It’s not even about fishing for compliments. It dawns on you, far too slowly, that this is Karma flirting. She’s flirting with you, for no real reason beyond the fact she wants to do it. All these mixed signals are confusing.

You reply in the same way you have since you were twelve: “Of course you are,” and she smiles in exactly the same way, but both of you know it’s not the same at all.

On impulse, you reach for her, tilting her head down toward you and pressing a quick kiss to her lips to affirm it. Twelve-year-old you wouldn’t have done _that_. You’re mildly surprised seventeen-year-old you has done it, but you can blame the heat for any quasi-erratic behaviour. That, and the fact that in two days time, you’ll be flying home, back to Austin, so you should’ve been savouring every little moment with her. Savouring all the ice creams and the lazy-hand-in-hand walks; the afternoons spent reading under trees while Karma made daisy chains or played the beginnings of songs, feverishly writing down soon-to-be lyrics in her journal. Savouring the hugs and the cautious, stolen – sometimes accidental – kisses while there’s no one to judge or whisper. Except, you couldn’t really enjoy any of it, not completely. Not with the small matter of a three-day heat wave, storms, and fifty thousand other things on your mind that all somehow relate to Karma, which have led you to sometimes be distracted and distant when you want to be the opposite. It’s made things awkward, and you’ve moved between behaving something like a couple, or like when you were faking being one, to just being friends, stepping on eggshells because you haven’t really talked about the fact you got _very_ close to sleeping together.

Except, you’re not quite ready to talk about that quite yet, so, you go for something easier. You’re both about being honest these days, and of all the things you’re worrying about, Austin is the biggest of all. It’s going to be difficult for Karma to be back there, you know that. It’s full bad memories and all kinds of triggers, and you’re not sure how she’ll cope. You’re not sure how you’ll cope either, because it’s not like you can protect her from everyone and everything. That’s too big a task, and surviving this is Karma’s mountain to climb. You’re just the helping hands, and they can only reach so far.

“Are you worried about going back?” you venture, cautiously, swinging around and sitting up.

“To Austin?” she asks, nervousness creeping into her voice.

You briefly wonder what else she’s afraid of, nodding instead of offering anything else in reply.

“Truth?” she turns to face you and you mirror her.

“Truth,” you repeat, placing your hand atop hers and squeezing gently.

Suddenly, what has or hasn’t happened between you thus far doesn't really matter. Karma’s recovery takes precedence right now, no matter how much it confuses and hurts you to bite back other questions and spend nights awake going over conversations. You’re good at dealing with your feelings, compartmentalising them in neat corners of your mind that aren’t readily accessed. At least, you hope you are, because you have to get used to having less than what you share now.

“Yes.” It’s a quiet, simple admission, but it hurts all the same. “I’m afraid of what people will say,” she begins, and you squeeze her hand harder. “I’m afraid of what they’ll think and what they imagined,” she gulps in air quickly “I’m afraid that … I won’t be able to go back in that school and face them all.”

“I’ll be there with you, Karma. I’ll be there right next to you to face them,” you remind her, gently, holding her gaze. “Me, Lauren, Shane,” and then, to your surprise, you add, “Liam ... If they want to get to you, they’re gonna have to go through us, OK?” you reach up and softly touch her cheek with the back of your hand. “We have claws!”

“I don’t want to have to fight, Amy,” her voice breaks, and you’re not comforting her at all. You’re making it worse. “All I want is this. I don’t want to lose this.”

You resist the urge to say ‘lose what?’ and answer, “You won’t,” instead.

“Everything here is perfect,” she says, brokenly, pulling away from you. “I’m not allowed to want perfect, I have to want what’s real and that’s Austin and all the mess we left behind, but all I want is this. This house. This town and the people. Just us, together.”

She sounds young and fragile. You wonder how many times Dr Levin or the kids in group therapy saw her like this.

Her expression, though warmed by the dim orange glow of the porch lights, is the same as when you saw her in the retreat parking lot. Small and thin, she was wearing your favourite hoodie, taken along as good luck charm-turned-talisman, and it swamped her, but that’s not what sticks out about your reunion. It's the fact that her hair was different. A small, mundane, ridiculous detail. Gone was that beautiful, rich auburn red, and in its place was the dark brown of the sweet, good, kind, desperate-to-be popular girl you’ve always known and loved.

If only you’d known how deep that love went. If only you realised it sooner. Held her closer. Said it louder. Fought harder.

“I know,” you reply, barely above a whisper. It’s hard to swallow. Your voice is thick and heavy. You’re holding back for her sake.

(mostly, it’s because you’re terrified that saying ‘I love you’ won’t be enough)

It’s killing you to see her like this. All you want is to hold her, and shush her, and soothe her, but it’s no good. This has to come out. Karma’s not like you, she has a limit. Pushing things away and trying to cope without help landed her in the hospital. You’re not about to send her back there because things are too painful for you to hear.

“I don’t care about Lauren, or Shane, or Liam,” she declares, and the forcefulness of her words surprises you. “They weren’t here. They care, but not like you. No one cares ... ” she screws her eyes shut, steeling herself, opens her mouth as if to speak, but holds back.

“What Karma?”

It’s dangerous to ask, even more dangerous to push, you know it is, but you can’t help it. You’re not stupid, you know things have changed. That they are changing, but you don’t want to push her so hard that she ends up relapsing because she’s not ready for what any of this means. You’d never forgive yourself if she ended up that way again.

“Through it all, Amy, it’s been you. You’ve been there. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”

Lauren and Shane are a package deal in this, equally concerned, but mostly you know their worry about Karma stems from worry about you. When she hurts, you hurt. It’s Liam’s lack of care that hurts her the most. Liam never called her. Liam never wrote her. Liam left her in that hospital room, and then buried himself in working at Skwerkel, because he didn’t know what else to do. He texted for while, and you’d return monosyllabic replies. You know he’s part of the reason why she ended up like she did, with their stupid friends with benefits bullshit that she couldn't deal with, running around partying and playing at being Mr and Mrs Popular. You let her do it because it was what she wanted. You gave her up, you let her go, but you thought Liam would look out for her in your absence. It was easier not to stand around and watch, to throw yourself into being with Reagan, but you wish you’d paid closer attention; wondered more about the rumours at school, and pressed Karma more on the rare occasions your talks would get past something deeper than the state of your Netflix queue, possible tattoos, and the contents of _US Weekly_.

The party wasn’t so much a cry for help, but the loudest of screams for it instead.

(and it took you far too long to hear her)

Between loving him and loving you, she gave so much of her heart away that she had nothing left to love herself with. That’s not the whole story though, and you both know it.

“You’re stronger than you think you are,” you hear yourself saying before you realise.

It’s a generic platitude, and you kind of hate yourself for being _that_ person, but it’s true. Everyone thinks Karma’s weak, and needy, and desperate, but she’s not. She’s strong and self-reliant, and she takes care of you before she takes care of herself. That’s the reason she’s in this mess. If it’s her fault, it’s your fault too.

“Only because of you.”

It’s said in this soft, pure way that you’ve never heard before. That still hurts somehow, and you just sit there, mouth slightly agape, not sure what to say, or even if you need to say anything at all.

“It’s part of why …” she stalls again, and you feel your whole body tense. “Why I started to drink when Liam and I went to parties.”

You’ve waited for that answer, and tried to theorise your own, for a long time. It’s not at all what you imagined.

“What?” is all you can say, and you don’t like how surprised you sound. You look away from her, filled with something like shame.

“I can explain,” she puffs out an unsteady breath. “I did it because I had all these thoughts and feelings, and they got so much I couldn’t keep them inside, but I couldn’t let them out either. The more I drank, the quieter everything got,” then, she pauses, and you look back. “I just wanted everything to stop.”

You weren’t ready for that answer either. Not remotely ready. You struggle to find words, mouth opening and closing, and the only thing you can feel is pain. A deep, crushing pain that you have no name for.

“Why couldn’t you come to me? Why couldn’t you tell me? When did I stop being that person you told everything to?” your questions come quickly then, voice cracking and giving out, teetering on the edge of tears. If you give into this now, you’ll never stop.

It’s almost like you’re looking down on this whole scene, watching it happen to other people who look a lot like you and Karma.

“I couldn’t because all those things were about you,” she says simply, with a shrug.

You’re certain that the world is about to stop turning, or you’re about to stop breathing, because she’s the one who rejected you at every single turn when you offered something that was real instead of fake. She loved you, but not in the way you desperately - so desperately - wanted her to. At least, that’s what she told you, what she let you believe.

“You became the person I dreamed about at night. You became the person I wanted to hold hands with. You were the person I wanted to be with. You became the person I wanted to share a house with instead of live next to,” she admits, all in one breathless ramble. “And I wanted that, I wanted you to love me so badly. I wanted to be yours,” she continues, tears rolling freely down her cheeks. “But, I couldn’t. I couldn’t let myself go there, because all my life I’ve been the weird hippie girl, with the stoner parents who run the juice truck. I wanted to stand out for all the reasons you’re supposed to.”

Your immediate reaction is ‘why?’ because she’s never seen herself as you do: beautiful, wonderful, and extraordinary. She thinks herself ordinary and unremarkable, when she’s anything but.

“Karma, you have no idea how amazing you –”

“Let me finish, Amy,” she says, cutting you off abruptly. “I need to tell you this. You need to know.”

You nod solemnly, sniffing back tears, waiting for her to continue.

“But I was wrong, because Liam’s not what I wanted, not really. Not deep down. I thought I did, I thought I should. He was just an idea. The Liam in my head and the Liam in real life, were _very_ different people,” she laughs, but it’s empty. “I was wrong, so wrong.”

“About?” you venture, terrified.

She’s moving closer suddenly, and you’re not sure what you should do, heart speeding in your chest. “Everything. Me. You. Us. Once I realised that …” she sucks in air, blinking back fresh tears. “It was you that I loved, that I was in love with. It was too late.”

“Reagan,” you blurt out, stupidly, and she just nods with this horrible resigned look.

It’s not until a few moments later that you actually realise what she said. Love. She loved you. She was in love with you. Was. Past tense.

“And then you were so happy with her, I knew if I told you, it’d ruin everything for you both, and between us, and you’d hate me.”

“I could never do that,” you reply, reflex.

“You should,” she looks up at the sky, her face crumpling as she struggles not to cry. “I lied to you. I lied to myself.”

You know exactly how it feels. You confessed to her once like this, and it felt like every word was being dragged out of you, somehow still attached to you; heavy and pulling at your skin. It hurt. Love shouldn’t hurt. Molly says love is beautiful. Your mother says love is wonderful. The movies say love is perfect. Books say love is forever.

“It was easier that way.”

“Than what?” you ask, surprised by how angry you sound. You’re not angry, you’re sad. So incredibly sad.

“Than losing you. I’m terrified of losing you. Of losing our friendship because we risk it to be something more.”

“Oh, Karma,” you exclaim, brokenly, taking her hand in your own, unable to stop yourself from comforting her in some small way. “I’d never leave you. I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

“See?”

You sigh deeply, looking down at your lap. She’s right. You’re scared of that too. You’re scared of drifting apart, of becoming strangers. You’re scared of that grocery line nightmare you told Shane about coming true. Never once did you think that Karma felt the same way. But now, things that have plagued you night after night, once abstract, strange, jagged puzzle pieces are clicking into place and starting to make sense. She’s always planned for your future - obsessively, some might say - and you liked the idea, it made you think you could survive faking it, and get back to who you really were. You just didn’t imagine Karma would be clinging to that future for the same kind of reasons.

“Except, no matter how much I drank or how much I focussed on Liam, that fear of losing you never went away, and I’d have these dreams, these nightmares, and the withdrawal made them worse. You’d turn your back on me for good. After the hospital, you’d be cheering with Liam and everyone else while I got dared to drink,” she’s hysterical now, barely able to speak, and you wish you could take this pain away for her.

“Karma, please stop,” you plead, not sure if you can stand any more. “Please.”

She ignores you, and you can barely look at her while she carries on. You know it has to happen. This has been a long time coming.

“You’d go with Reagan, and leave me to choke in that bathroom. You and Liam would leave me alone in the ambulance, waving goodbye. It felt like drowning. Over and over. You were always there to rescue me, close, but never close enough.”

“Tell me you don’t feel like that anymore.”

You don’t even bother to hide how desperate you are for her to be OK, and for these things to be in the past instead. Thinking of her like that, so confused, and lost, and broken, hurts. She turned on herself, instead of turning on you when she could’ve. She would’ve been within her rights to kick and scream, to hate you for what you made her feel, and how deeply it went.

(You hated yourself sometimes. You wanted to flip a switch and take all those feelings away too).

But then, you think of how good it’s been here in Beaufort, being together - not even romantically - and how happy it’s made you. Yes, you’re still worried for her, but that doesn’t take away the from the moments you’ve shared here and how special this place is. How different, how much stronger, and how much deeper your connection with Karma goes. You never dared to hope you’d be as close as you are now.

“No, I don’t,” she replies, quickly, and you let out a breath you didn’t even know you were holding.

“Promise me something?” you ask, cautious.

“What?” the softness in her voice matches yours.

“That if you feel like that again, if you’re hurting and confused, that you’ll tell me. I can’t see you suffer like …” you tail off, ignoring images of that bathroom flashing up in your mind. “It almost killed me,” you touch her cheek gently with the back of your hand, part of you needs to make sure this is actually happening, that you’re not imagining it. “It almost killed you.”

She nods sadly, her bottom lip wobbling as she struggles to hold back tears. It’s a bleak thought, and it came close – too close – to being true. Minutes, the EMT said when you asked him how long Karma had left, watching her through the window while the doctors worked on her. Minutes.

“It’s hard not to feel like that, and part of me always will,” she pauses, her face falling when you whimper, cradling your face in her hands and brushing away the tears that have fallen without your notice. “But, I know I have to try, because nothing with Liam, not one second,” she’s speaking more slowly, labouring her words to make sure she’s understood, “feels like when I’m with you. I know the difference now. I _want_ the difference, Amy.”

“Does that mean what I think it means?” you ask, stupefied.

You need her to say it. You need her to say that she loves you out loud, to cancel out all the times you wished, and wished, and wished for it in your head.

“It means,” she stalls, choosing her words carefully, “the retreat let me see that I could be without you, and I could be fine, but I don’t want to be.”

“Fine?” you’re smiling now, just a little. The heavy tension that settled between you is starting to lift.

“Without you,” she corrects, resting her forehead against yours. “Without. You,” she repeats, punctuating her words with the barest pecks of kisses. “Remember when you came to pick me up from the retreat, and you waited in the car while I said goodbye to Linda?”

“Of course,” you answer, remembering how kind she was to you while you sat in the plush reception, waiting for Karma to appear with her suitcase. “I didn’t want to intrude, I know how important she is.”

“Well, she told me something, and it’s important you know what it was,” she begins, cryptically. “She told me to follow my heart, no matter how far away it takes me from where I think I should be, and no matter what anyone else says.”

“Karma,” you say, needlessly, little more than a whisper.

  
There are fresh tears welling up, but this time they’re happy ones.

“I’ve denied what I’ve felt for too long,” she pauses deliberately, holding your gaze when she adds, “so, this is me, ignoring my head and following my heart,” she’s nervous now, her voice shaky. “I think,” she continues cautiously, moving back a little to look at you. “I think that you could make me happy. I think we could make each other happy,” she amends. “I love you.”

It’s not blurted out, panicked, or desperate. It’s just honest, said as naturally as she says your name. She said it. Out loud. No additions and no conditions. Present tense.

This time, the world stops.

Suddenly, you realise she heard all your frustrated, introspective bullshit rambling, about how you could be together, and be happy, and she didn’t say anything. She kept quiet when she could’ve asked you questions about why you keep slamming the brakes on everything the second you get physical, but she hasn’t. People always think she talks too much about things of no consequence, but everything seems to matter when she’s talking to you, it’s why everything of importance takes her a long time - too long sometimes - to say out loud.

“You … do?”

You sound surprised and you’re not sure why. Everything you’ve ever done, ever, pretty much relates to making Karma happy, or being the source of her happiness. Everything that’s left after that, or beyond that, is because you love her: deeply, hopelessly, and without hesitation. And yet, it still feels strange. You’re waiting for the retraction, for the hurried declaration that it was a mistake. But there’s nothing - only Karma studying you carefully, closely, trying to gauge your reaction.

“I know you’re scared too, Amy,” she says, hands dropping down to your neck, resting there loosely. "You’re scared of what will happen if we do get together. You’re scared of what will happen if we don’t. You’re scared of how you’ll cope if - ”

“Karma,” you jump in quickly, not wanting to hear her say it, because you’re so close, closer than you've ever been to something, and if you couldn’t still feel that oppressive heat, the wood grain of the porch swing under your palms, or Karma’s fingertips on the back of your neck, you’d swear you were dreaming.

She’s right. You are scared. Scared doesn’t even cover it, but you’re not sure if you can carry on never knowing what it would be like to be hers, to be with her, either.

“I’m tired of being scared,” she declares, with a certainty in her voice you haven’t heard in a long time. “I know you’ve been holding back whenever we’ve kissed because you don’t think I’m ready, but I am.”

You smile. “It’s hard to say no to you. Really hard.”

That’s the understatement of the century.

You’ve never considered yourself a particularly sexual person. You’ve had crushes on people – five minute things like with Josh and Oliver – but never this, you’ve never desired someone. You’ve never wanted someone like you want Karma. You’ve been patient and kind for her sake as much as yours, but it’s difficult. It’s resulted in a lot of cold showers that have nothing to do with the heat.

“It’s hard to say yes, too,” she counters, and you nod, sympathetically. “I thought it was because you didn’t want me,” she adds, sheepishly, after a moment.

“Oh, Karm,” you exclaim, laughing a little. “There’s no way that’s possible. Ever. I just didn’t want to rush and waste it. You deserve that ...” you tail off, feeling yourself blushing. “I just wanted you to be ready, that’s all.”

“I’m ready,” she replies, firm, her lips quirking into a smile.

You nod dumbly, not quite believing this is happening, but at the same time, knowing it would. Everything has been building to this. Maybe it’s been that way since you stepped off the plane. Maybe it’s been that way since you kissed in the gym two years ago. All you both needed was time and space. A lot of time and a lot of space, but you’re here and it’s real, and everything you’ve ever wanted is within your grasp. Literally.

“Are you?” it sounds a little like a challenge.

Now, she’s blushing, looking up at you shyly. “Yes.”

“Sure?” you ask softly, moving a little closer.

“Very,” she affirms, with the slightest of nods, staring directly at your lips.

“Completely?” you continue, in the same tone, pressing a quick kiss to her lips. She catches on quickly. “Absolutely?” you follow with a another kiss, a little longer than the last, barely moving away to ask one final question. “Totally?”

“Yes.”

She says it in this low, breathy way you’ve never heard before. You really, _really_ like it.

“Good,” you nod, “because," you start, hands framing her face, “I’m going to kiss you, and this time I won’t stop. So if you don’t want me to, tell me now.”

“I want you to,” she swallows hard. “I want _you_ ,” she clarifies.

You blink back surprise, because she’s never been this forward before.

“OK,” you reply, letting out a long breath. “If we do this, if we go there, Karm, we can’t go back,” you remind her. You want her to be certain, truly certain.

She has a look you’ve only ever seen once; in that tiny, horrible hotel room, with the bad lighting and the cheap curtains. You had control then, rehearsal, practice, it was like an elaborate game of chess. The kiss was timed, and slow, and perfect. One that still ranks in your favourite kisses pretty much ever, regardless of what happened after.

“I don’t want to go back.”

This time, there’s no control. No softness. No calmness.

The kiss is more of a graceless lunge for her mouth that takes her by surprise. Even so, she responds quickly, hard and fast, hands flying up to thread into your hair. She draws in your bottom lip and sucks on it, just a little. You’re not even remotely ashamed when you moan into her mouth. You can feel her smiling against your lips. Naturally, you tilt your head to follow her when she moves back, and the kiss deepens, slowing a little, until Karma’s kissing with an ease and an eagerness you’ve never felt with her before. All you want is more of it. More of her. More of everything. You thought you wanted her back then at the hotel, but that’s nowhere near what you feel now. You’re ready for this. You’re ready give your heart to her. To adore her, and show her exactly how she should be kissed and touched, and held and loved.

You go with the only knowledge you have: that she likes it when you kiss her slowly, but she likes it even more when you kiss her neck. So, you let your hands fall away, dropping to her waist, skimming her sides as you go, and dip your head, pressing light kisses on her neck, moving toward her throat when she lets out a long, unsteady breath and tilts her head back.

“Amy,” she calls out breathlessly, “Amy.”

You pull away, worried you’re moving too quickly for her. “What’s wrong? Are you OK?”

She nods firmly. “I think,” she starts, reaching for your hand, lacing your fingers together. “We should go inside.”

So, not too much at all. In fact, not enough. You could keep going here, but then you’re not sure how much your nana would like it if she found you hours from now, wrapped up in each other and blankets on this swing. She’s tolerant, open, and liberal, possibly to a fault these days, but you think that might be her limit, especially in front of Mr Willis.

“Oh – OK,” you stutter a little, and clear your throat. You’re supposed to be the one with the experience and the skills, but it’s _Karma_ and that makes everything different. Even kissing her is still a novelty, even before you add in the fact there’s tongue involved now. A lot.

“That’s a good idea,” you laugh, but it’s nervous. “That’s a _really_ good idea.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” she replies, biting on her lip and looking at you like you’re the greatest thing in the world. You could get used to it. Fast. “Let’s go,” she continues, springing up to her feet and pulling you with her.

When the screen door slams behind you both, you know there’s no going back on this. Whatever happens from now, it’s final.

The hallway feels twice as long as when you first padded along it barefoot hours ago, hoping to escape the heat of the bedroom. Now, with Karma’s hand in yours, fingers laced in a way you can only call comfortable, you’re willingly being led back toward it. There’s a warm orange glow coming from the open door. The hue is coming from a borrowed silk scarf over the lamp on your side of bed, Karma did it weeks ago for warm colour, and to make it less harsh to sleep under. Tonight, it looks intimate, and dare you say it, romantic. Cliché perhaps, but you don’t much care. If any girl deserves the rose petals and candles treatment, it’s her. The fact that she has neither almost makes you sad, but you do have something that’s better than both those things. You have time, and an empty house to show her what love is supposed to mean.

(you’re well aware what a horrendously sappy notion that is, but you don’t care about that either)

She’s about to step over the threshold of the room when you tug her backwards with a soft, “C’mere,” wrapping your free arm around her waist and pulling her close.

“Hi,” she says, with a knowing smile.

“Hi,” you echo, brushing her hair off of her face before you kiss her gently.

The gesture isn’t lost on her. It still has the same calming effect.

You follow it with a series of soft, but deliberate pecks, slowly guiding her through the door, hands on her hips, while Karma’s own cup loosely at the back of your neck. When you grudgingly break for air, you have to let go of Karma too. You take a few steps back to close the door, missing the handle twice – your hands are shaking out of nowhere, heart pounding loudly – relieved when you hear it shut with a satisfying click.

“Just for us, OK?” you say, before locking it for good measure, and she gives a small nod.

It’s not to keep her in, but rather, everyone else out.

The heat in the room is stifling. The air seems thicker somehow than when you left. In its own way, it seems right, like you’re in some strange, far flung place, sweltering. An undiscovered country. This is where you are right now, you think.

You turn your attention back to Karma, and she looks different. She’s shaken her hair out of its ponytail, and her face is prettily flushed. All you can think is that she looks beautiful in this light. But, she seems more nervous, standing midway between you and the bed, looking unsure what to do with herself: how to stand or if she should, what to say or if she shouldn’t say anything at all. It’s adorable. You take a few steps toward her, easing her into this. It doesn’t matter that there’s a very large part of you that wants to tear her clothes off, throw her down on that bed, and kiss every inch of her, but you can’t. You have to be calm and patient, guide her, take care of her. You don’t want it to be all over after spending ten minutes with your head between her legs.

This is about more. She deserves more.

Then, before you realise what’s really happening, she shoves you against the door, handle digging into your back. It hurts for a few seconds, but your “ouch” is muffled when her mouth collides with yours. You can’t really do anything but kiss back, arms trapped between both your bodies. She swallows down your surprise, kissing you hungrily, fingers curling around the hem of your t-shirt, lifting it slightly. Right when she turns her attention to your neck - though attack might be more accurate - it briefly crosses your mind that Karma might be the one with her head between _your_ legs instead. That thought, and her fingertips brushing cautiously against your stomach at the same time, is just too much.

“Karma, Karma,” you say, breathless, forcing yourself to focus. “Karma,” you say again, a little louder.

She pulls away abruptly.

“What’s wrong? Am I doing something wrong?”

She looks terrified all of a sudden, and you feel bad.

“No,” you reassure. “Not at all. We just need to slow down a little, OK? It’s a lot. It’s doing a lot,” you swallow, oddly embarrassed when there’s no real reason to be, “to me … for me.”

“Oh,” she replies, quietly, clearly embarrassed too, glancing down at the floor when she adds, “Sorry.”

If you’re not careful, this could get difficult. Fast. You didn’t mean to knock her confidence, but you have.

You tap her chin to make her lift her head. “Don’t be sorry,” you smile, and she mirrors it.

Whatever awkward tension was there seems to break.

Then, you realise where all this is coming from; the desperation, the neediness, the outright panic in Karma’s eyes: this is what it's like with Liam. Grabby and greedy for all the wrong reasons. Of course you’re desperate for this, of course you need her more than you’ve ever needed anything in your life, and you have a lot more experience with this than she does. OK, so it’s just one girl, but it’s one girl more than Karma. Karma knows what she’s doing, she created a whole fucking dossier for your education, but it’s different with you. The experience of all this is different. Karma looking at you has an effect. Karma even breathing on you has an effect.

“I just want it to be good. You know what it’s supposed to be like,” Karma says, a few moments later, in this small, almost sad voice. “I just …. I’m not used to …”  she tries again, worrying her lip between her teeth, still serious. So serious.

“I know,” you say softly, closing the distance between you, taking both of Karma’s hands in yours. You wait until she’s looking at them instead of you, and slowly lace your fingers together. She’s just as fascinated by the fit as you are. It’s perfect. “You don’t have to worry about anyone or anything else that’s happened, Karma,” you begin, waiting until she looks up at you before carrying on. “This is about us,” you continue, stepping fractionally closer. “Just me and you …”

You both know there’s baggage here. The weight of too many unsaid things, but for now at least, you have to shed it. You have to let it go.

(carrying it around almost killed you both)

“OK,” she replies, making barely any sound.

You know she’s taking a risk, and that she’s scared, but you’d never force her if she wasn’t ready, and it’s clear she is. This is more about the fact she’s moving toward

something she’s _afraid_ to want as much as she does. It’s a feeling you know well. You take a risk too, letting go of her hands and moving behind her. She sucks in a quick breath, still a little tense. You wait before carefully lifting her hair off of her shoulder, moving aside the straps of her tank and bra, and placing a kiss there. “And, we’ll take this … slowly … ” you continue, punctuating your words with kisses, getting closer to her neck.

This is what you dreamed about. The softness of her skin, the taste of it, the warmth of it. Small things, like the beautiful patterns of beauty marks you know you’ll trace later when her tank is gone. It’s strange to make details that used to be abstract, concrete. A matter of when, not if.

“OK,” she says again, but it sounds completely different to before, with a little whimper as you kiss her lightly. “You just have expectations,” she’s starting to get into her head again, thinking too much. “I don’t want to disappoint you.”

You wish you could look at her, but you think it’s best you can’t, it’s easier to tell the truth that way. “You could _never_ do that.”

You repeat the same path of kisses, lingering in different spots, adding brief sweeps of your tongue.

“Don’t – Don’t laugh if I suck,” she says, stumbling over her words in this sweet, earnest way. “I’m probably going to.”

“Never,” you reply, simply, because it’s true.

She’s pressing back into you now, seeking more contact, her arm reaching around to cup the back of your head. It’d be easy to tilt your head slightly and kiss her mouth, but you want to push it a little further, because you can feel her starting to let go and relax, dropping the thousand silly and strange ideas about how she’ll seduce you and prove herself better. You don’t want better. You don’t _need_ better. You just want her.

“Trust me?” you say softly in her ear, slowly reaching around to hold her from behind, palms resting flat on her stomach. She swallows hard and you almost feel it. “Don’t be nervous,” you add, softer still, when she tenses just a little.

Carefully, you move your hands upwards, listening to her breath hitch as you go. You’re barely kissing her now, just resting your mouth against her neck for contact. When you reach her breasts, you keep the touches light, over her shirt, but it’s clearly affecting her. She lets out a content little noise – not a moan, and not a gasp, something between the two that you _really_ want to hear again – and she pushes back into you more. She’s reaching for you again, her head tilted back, like you’ve seen her do on the dance floor on nights when you’ve snuck out with fake IDs. You let her have that kiss on the lips this time, but it’s lazy, lingering, with Karma’s tongue darting out quickly, seeking more. You give it, and you kiss like that for longer than you should, even though the angle is strange and less than comfortable, with Karma pushing up on her toes for leverage.  Your slide your hands downwards again, stopping at the ties for her sleep shorts.

It’s too hot in this room to be anything but naked.

Her own hands drop to cover yours, but you don’t take it as her wanting to stop, you take it as the signal to carry on. Wordlessly, you turn her toward you, taking those ties between your fingers.

You glance at her quickly. “Is this OK?”

“I won’t break Amy,” she replies firmly.

You work to untie them together, watching as they pool at her feet and she steps out of them. There’s barely a moment to look, let alone touch, because she moves toward you then, wrapping her arms around you. Naturally, your own go around, hands falling to rest on her lower back. You’re kissing again before you realise, in this slow, but somehow heated way. Karma’s getting more confident and you relish it, they way her mouth seems to fuse with yours, more insistent than that was before, pressing harder. When you reluctantly break for air, Karma’s looking at you in a way she never has before – all you can describe it as is lust, and that’s not remotely close. You take her hand and lead her toward the bed. It feels right. Everything about this feels right. She looks confused for second when you sit on the edge – you assume she thought you’d lie down – but that fades quickly, replaced by a smile when you pull her into your lap so she’s straddling you. Her arms go around your neck, with your hands drifting down from her waist to her ass to keep her steady. She’s gripping you tightly, so she’s not likely to fall, but you don’t care.

You stay like that for what feels like a long time.

“What?” Karma says, when you realise you’ve been staring for far too long.

You shrug. “You.”

Her head drops, and she’s practically glowing with embarrassment, but you can see her smiling, so for once, it’s not a bad thing.

“I think you deserve more.”

Coming from anyone else, that would sound conceited, or like they’re fishing for complements, but there’s a sweet playfulness to the way she says it that’s so completely _her_ , that you can’t help but smile.

“Oh really?” you’re trying for sultry, maybe even a little cocky, but it comes off as neither. You just sound surprised instead, maybe even a little shocked.

“Mmm, you so do.”

She leans back a little, and you know exactly what’s going to happen. She reaches for the hem of her tank and you’re anticipating her lifting it off with that amazing – amazingly sexy – almost feline flex thing she does. It doesn’t quite work in this heat, sticking to her skin, so you slide your hands back up, pushing at the material as she pulls. God, you love the feel of her skin under your hands already. She’s warmer now, and you just want to kiss everything you can see.

“Dammit,” she curses, when the tank gets caught in her hair, and you reach up to help her.

She’s wearing matching lingerie. The expensive kind, black and lacy and all kinds of grown up. You know she does this to feed her Victoria’s Secret obsession and make herself feel pretty and special – her words, not yours – but you also know she does it when she really wants to please someone, and look good for them.

Now, that person is you. She’s been wearing them all night. All through your date with the pretty dress. A thrill goes through you at the thought. You’re special enough to her now to warrant it. She doesn’t know it yet, but yours don’t match. At all. They’re just boring and ordinary by comparison. You never dared to plan. You never dared to hope.

“Not quite what I was going for,” she laughs.

“Oh, I like what you went for,” you counter, pulling her closer, hands moving up her back. “I like it a lot.”

“Amy,” she says, in this low tone you’ve never heard before, pushing back against your hands.

“You like that?” it’s a redundant question, you already know the answer.

“Yes…. God, why does it feel so different when you touch me?”

You’re not sure she meant to say that out loud, but you don’t really care. It turns out your subconscious is startlingly accurate in regard to Karma and the _very_ sexy dreams you’ve been having about her for the last few years. You just never expected very _real_ Karma to be so responsive.

She’s practically curled into you now, so close you can feel her breath, hot on your neck. If it were anyone else you’d swat them away, but you want to be as close to her as possible.

“How about this?” you ask, innocently and purposefully wait before doing anything.

You want the anticipation to build. Dare you say it, you want to tease her a little, and make her wait, but you’re weak when it comes to her, you give in so easily. Now is no exception. You let go of her, and she grunts in frustration. You purse your lips closed, suppressing the urge to laugh.

“Wait.”

After a quick count to three in your head, you think she’s ready. You start at her stomach, what you can reach, and then move upwards, fingertips tracing, slow and careful. First, you feel her stomach muscles flex under your touch, and then, when you follow the vague outline of her ribcage, you feel her breathing - when it’s steady, when it’s less so. It suddenly anchors you and makes everything so much more real. It means you’re less than smooth when you reach her bra, tracing over the material while you pepper brief kisses across her chest. She breathes a “Fuck …” when you start to palm her breasts, making them spill a little from the cup of her bra. Then, you press delicate kisses there, alternating between them, stroking the skin you’re not kissing. You glance up briefly to see her eyes closed, head thrown back, lips parted, and it makes you feel like some kind of superhero. It spurs you on, makes you bolder, and you trace your tongue between the valley of her breasts, dotting brief kisses over the trail of beauty marks you usually have to resist your eyes from following. Then, you kiss all over her chest, slow and deliberate. When you reach her bra, you keep on kissing; up and over the material before pulling down the cups just enough to expose a little more of her. You feel her hand at the back of your head, urging you closer, and then her fingers are threading through your hair, twisting slightly.

She needs more, you need more. You want to devour her, but she wants it too.

“God, Amy, take it off,” you hear her say, with this desperate edge to her voice. You can’t possibly deny her. “Please?”

You reach around, fumbling for the clasp. You try and try, twisting it and turning it, but it just. Won’t. _Fucking_. Open.

“Shit,” you curse quietly, frustrated.

Then, she falls against you, bursting into laugher, bracing herself on your shoulder to keep steady. So much for being smooth.

“You try when you can’t even see what the fuck you’re doing!” you say, irritated.

You’re supposed to be the one who knows, after all.

There was a little image in your head of how this next step would go. First, you’d pop the clasp one handed and slide the bra off, straps first, all teasing and, well, sexy. Second, you’d throw it somewhere, completely forgotten, and turn your attention back to her. Third, you’d palm her breasts – squeeze, just a little – kiss every inch of them before shifting your focus to her nipples, teasing and tweaking with your fingertips, or swirling with your tongue. Then, when you know she can’t wait any longer, you’d draw one of them into your mouth, feeling it stiffen under your tongue.

But, you went and killed all that, and you just feel incredibly stupid.

“Here,” Karma begins, in this soft, yet sultry, voice. “Let me help you.”

She moves back, waiting until she knows she has your attention. Your arms drop to your sides, palms flat on the mattress, so you can at least show some semblance of restraint and not dive toward her as soon as she’s taken it off. Though you’re not sure how, the next few moments seem to unfold in slow – beautifully slow – motion. She reaches behind, and undoes the clasp with an ease you don’t even have for yourself. Purposefully, she takes her time, moving it away a strap at a time, pushing it slowly down her arms, revealing herself like a striptease. Then, you blink, and it’s gone, cast off to somewhere you don’t remotely care about, because holy _fuck_ Karma’s in front of you, and she’s fucking beautiful. You know she’s insecure about her body, and it’s a big thing for her to do this. It means something. You also know you’re staring, that your jaw has probably dropped to cartoonish degrees, and it’s entirely possible you’re drooling too.

“Like?”

She’s smiling, and there’s a playfulness to her that you’ve never seen (or heard) before.

“You have no idea how much,” you reply, tongue darting out to wet your suddenly dry lips.

Her smile gets wider. “You can touch me, if you want.”

“I can huh?” you sound just a little smug.

Now, you’re smiling too. She takes your hands, covering her breasts with them, and if it wasn’t her, you’d feel ridiculous, but it is, so you don’t at all. When her own move away, falling to rest on her thighs, you take it as a signal to carry on. At first, you keep your movements slow, watching her for her reaction at first, doing little more than palming them, your thumbs flicking over her nipples. Her breath hitches at that, and you know exactly why. They’re crazy sensitive – she overshares, a lot – stiffening far quicker than you thought.

Another quick glance up, and you see her eyes fluttering closed.

“Good?” you risk asking.

You’ve never really been one for talking during sex, much less dirty talk, but there’s something insanely hot about discovering what she likes, and what effect you have on her.

“Yes,” she replies, in her exhale. “Yes.”

It’s lucky you’re so close to her, because you can barely hear the answer. Given she’s reacting like this to such small things, you’re tempted to just give in, and bury your mouth there, lavishing attention on her, but then that little voice in your head that’s nagging at you to saviour this gets loud, and you puff out a breath, forcing yourself to dial it back for her sake as much as your own. She’s barely touched you, and you’re more turned on than you’ve ever been, uncomfortably wet just from watching her experience all this.

You lean forward, pressing your lips to her right breast first – it’s the most sensitive, apparently – kissing all over, adding brief, teasing licks with your tongue while massaging the one you’re not kissing; just because you need to feel her, and you want to be the reason she feels the most pleasure she ever her has. She starts to grind her hips down against your lap unconsciously, and you lose focus for a moment, dropping random kisses on her skin without thought, because _Jesus_ does that feel good, infinitely better than it should, so you just let yourself enjoy it when she pushes down harder.. Just to see what she does, you purposefully, don’t go near her nipple until the last possible moment, wrapping your lips around it and swirling your tongue lightly all over and around. She gasps loudly in response, half surprise, half pleasure. So, you do it again, but this time you suck it a little, pushing the tip gently until it sinks, before releasing it altogether. You’re just about to switch sides – because that sound she makes is the most _delicious_ thing ever and you need to hear it again – when her hand on your shoulder stops you, making you pull back and look at her.

“I just … you’re wearing too many clothes … I need to touch you …” it falls from her mouth in one breathless ramble.

Well, you weren’t expecting _that_.

Before you can even think of forming a coherent response, she’s tugging impatiently at your t-shirt, motioning for you to lift your arms. You nod, and do it, fixated by the look on her face. Just like before, the material sticks to your skin, and it makes you feel weird and gross, because sweat is the _least_ sexy element of this night, but she doesn’t seem to care, and just pulls that little bit harder. She barely gives you a chance to breathe after its cast off before she’s doing the same to the (not all that cute) sports bra you always sleep in. Your brain is still stuck on the fact that she actually just _did_ practically tear off your clothes, and somehow you’re still breathing.

“Oh, wow,” is all she says, in this quiet, awed way. She doesn’t grab or grope like you expected. Instead, she hesitates, looking you up and down, her gaze lingering here and there. If it were anyone else, you’d feel embarrassed, but you’re not, you’re weirdly pleased - proud even - that you can make her say things like that.

“You’re hot …”

You sigh deeply. “I know, it’s hot as fuck in here,” you reply, flipping your hair back.

A few seconds later, the proverbial penny drops when she looks at you pointedly, and says, “I didn’t mean the temperature …”

“Oh,” is all you manage in reply, feeling massively stupid. Your embarrassment radiates off you in waves.

No one’s really looked at you like she’s doing now.

“But I think,” she begins, right in your ear, “you’d look even hotter if you lost these,” she continues, reaching for the waistband of your sleep shorts, hooking her fingers just inside and brushing lightly. “Take ‘em off.”

Suddenly, you’re not so embarrassed anymore.

Letting out a long breath, you just look at her, because you had no idea she could be like this. Well, that’s a lie, you’ve seen inklings when she’s flirted with someone, but it’s rarely been directed at you. She moves off to your left, and you miss the warmth of her immediately. It takes you far too long to get yourself together and move backwards toward the pillows, trying to get the shorts off as you go. It’s not remotely sexy, because frankly, you’re kind of flustered, and she’s crawling toward you in a way that’s both so familiar and foreign at once. You’ve seen the curious look in her eyes before now too, but she’s never seemed this tempted, this _hungry_. You’re still watching her, speechless, when she tosses your shorts away and settles herself on top of you. Her hands rest on either side of your head and she’s straddling you, just like before, but it feels completely different.

She leans down for a kiss, and it seems to take forever for your lips to touch. When they do, it’s surprisingly soft and tentative, and it throws you for a second, since you were anticipating something harder and rougher, where she bites your lip or leave marks on your skin, but this is so much better. You didn’t realise how much you needed to be kissing her, just like this, until it happened. Your bodies are nearly flush; almost every part of you is touching every part of her, and you can’t _breathe_ all of a sudden. She tilts her head, changing the angle and deepens the kiss into this lazy, languid, amazing thing where you can’t tell when one kiss ends and another begins. You sigh - actually sigh - into her mouth, wrapping your arms around her and pull her even closer.

You roll onto your side and lie with her like that for what seems like a long time –

time gets elastic with her; stretches and bends into new shapes – hands all over each other, exploring as you kiss. You trace her collarbones with your fingertips, round her shoulders, caressing lightly, one hand coming to rest on the small of her back, while the other cups her face. Karma’s touches are more tentative, but you can sense she wants to do more. Her hand rests on your hip, fingers flexing, drawing out vague patterns that make you feel kind of dizzy, and you’re not sure why.

“Can I?” she whispers, when you finally break the kiss. There’s an unmistakable trembling in her voice.

She wants more, to push this further, but you know she’s unsure. Imagining is one thing, doing it is another.

In lieu of a reply, you kiss her. It’s more a brief brush of your lips against hers than anything else. You’re still recovering, having kissed too much, too quickly. Without a word, you reach down, covering her hand and lifting it from where it sits on your hip, guiding it upwards, skimming past your stomach and over your ribs, landing on your breast. For a moment all you can do is look at her while it rests there, and she squeezes cautiously. Even at this light touch, your eyes flutter closed. When your hand falls away, she does it again, rolling your nipple experimentally between her fingers. She pushes you onto your back, and again and you let her, resistance long gone. As soon as it started, it’s over. Your eyes snap open, and you’re about to protest, when you feel Karma’s mouth on your chest, dotting kisses all over, while her hands ghost around the curve of your breasts, fascinated. Your arch your back up, craving more contact, and she glances up at you, smiling a little.

“That’s good,” you manage, the shakiness of your voice betraying you.

Karma makes you horny as hell a lot of the time, and it’s strange to give in instead of repressing it, but you’ve never been this turned on.

“Yeah?” she sounds surprised, and you wish she could understand how she makes you feel.

“Yes,” her smile widens when you say it. “So good.”

She looks like she just won the lottery. Her whole face lights up, and a short peal of laughter bubbles up out of nowhere; sweet, sexy and mischievous. It’s all you’ve ever wanted to hear. On impulse, you surge forward, mouth landing on hers roughly as you flip the both of you, pressing Karma into the mattress. You swallow down her shock, kissing her again and again, quick, greedy little pecks because no matter what you do, you can’t get enough of her. It’s a lot less smooth than you want it to be, but you don’t much care, because she’s looking at you with such _want_ that you’ll pretty much do anything she asks.

“But, it can be better than good,” you say, right in her ear, in this husky tone you’ve never even used before. “You’ll see.”

You hear her say something like “Oh,” around a breath and you push back, sliding down her body. She’s watching, you know it, so you make a display, teasing her, dotting a haphazard trail of kisses down her stomach, stroking skin as you go. She tastes of salt, and sweat, and something that’s just her that you’ll never be able to stop from wanting. Where this sudden display of boldness has come from, you don’t know, but you really like it, and so does she, squirming under you in this delicious way. You keep going, lower and lower, kissing lighter and lighter, until you’re doing little more than breathing against her skin. Then, with one, purposeful kiss right below her navel, you stop, moving backward to take it all in.

It hits you then, the weight of her gaze, the enormity of what you’re about to do to her and for her.

Never in your life did you think you’d ever get here, on your knees between her legs, hands hovering over her panties, waiting to hook and pull them off. Never did you think that touching her and tasting her would be anything you did outside of the fantasies you had while you touched yourself instead. The memory is almost enough to make you falter, but you can’t stop now. You don’t want to. That shame-faced girl is long gone.

One glance up and one look at her is all it takes for you to take that final step. She looks so expectant, so ready, that it stirs something in you separate from how much you want her. Part of you wants to work your way back to her; tease her, and kiss her, and tell her how amazing it’s going to feel – that’s not arrogance, you have it on good authority. But then, the smarter, bigger part of you, just wants to let her feel it. Feel the roar of her blood, the jackhammer pounding of her heart, and the unfolding pleasure you can never describe – a kind you know she’s never experienced before. You take your time, easing her panties down slower than you would usually, because this is the thing you want to make sure is burned into your memory, deep and bright: the moment she let herself be vulnerable, and let her every guard drop. She lifts her hips to help you, and you almost lose it right then.

“Please, Amy,” she says, desperate. It’s enough. It’s enough to make you do anything she’d ask for. “Please.”

Dreams don’t do this. Dreams don’t beg and plead.

You still find yourself watching, transfixed even, while you drag them further down her legs, stroking her skin as you descend because you can. There’s a moment where you fumble again near her ankles, but then, they’re gone, and Karma’s waiting for you, gazing at you with this mix of excitement, fear, and admiration. You’ve imagined this far, looking down at her; legs spread and wanting, but there’s always been the tug of your conscience, the dim pull of the alarm clock dragging you to wakefulness. Now, there’s nothing. It’s perfect. She’s perfect.

Soon, she’ll know just how much.

You keep things gentle and light, dropping kisses along her thighs, alternating between them, easing her into this, because you were scared once too. In the end, you’re putting barely any pressure at all. You move closer, tracing the shape of her lips with your tongue, closing your eyes and breathing her in when you meet with already slick – so slick – folds. Her breath hitches sharply, so you pull back a little and wait, wondering if this is all too much. Resettling yourself, you hook one arm around her thigh, palm flat on her stomach to steady her, other hand reaching up blindly until she takes it and intertwines your fingers.

“Keep going,” she says, in a quiet, shaky voice, and you squeeze her hand to reassure her.

It’s a lot. You know it’s a lot for her. It’s a lot for you too.

This time, you dial it back and go softer still, pressing kisses that would be almost cute if you were kissing her on the mouth. She moans in this _delicious_ way, and you feel her arch up toward you. You take it as a good sign, moving to gently tease her lips, pulling them lightly, and listening for her reaction. It’s a sigh, a content one, so you carry on, humming appreciation right against her as you press a little harder, lapping with broad sweeps of your tongue. Her own response is louder. An unmistakable “fuck!” is gasped out in a mix of surprise and utter joy. She won’t be able to take too much more, you know it. She’s too wet for that, but you want her to have this moment. You want to tell her how amazing she tastes, how amazing she feels – soft and silky and so _fucking_ perfect you could happily die after this, because nothing will beat it - but you know it’ll break the spell if you do. The way this is going, you’re not sure she’ll ever need to touch you before you’re gone entirely, but you’re determined to focus on her, grinding your hips down against the mattress for the friction instead.

The moment you start to slowly circle her clit, you think you’ve gone too far, because she whimpers desperately. But then, her other hand - the one that’s not holding tight to yours - grabs the back of your head, urging you deeper. So, you give her what she wants; alternating between the same long strokes of your tongue and gently sucking on her clit. You change things every so often, experimentally, just to see what works best. Like you, it’s soft and slow teasing she seems to enjoy the most. Her hips move in the same lazy rhythm, chasing down your strokes, and those sweet, content noises are giving away to louder moans and shallower breaths. She’s getting too close now, starting to shake, and you gradually slow until you stop completely, grudgingly pulling your mouth away.

You inhale deeply, trying to commit all of this to memory, briefly closing your eyes and relishing scent of her all around you and the taste of her that’s still on your lips. There’s nothing like it. You’re aching to do it again, and that ache has nothing to with the warmth that’s spiking in your belly.

“Why did you stop?” she groans, obviously frustrated. “It felt so good.”

It’s unfair, cruel even, but you have a good reason. It’d be too easy to go there now; another few minutes and you know it’d all be over. You don’t want it to be. The second she falls apart for the first time and comes because of you and for you, it has to be something you can watch every second of as it happens. You want to kiss her and hold her while you watch, because she deserves to have every ounce of your attention.

You lock eyes with her, drinking her in; all tousled hair and flushed cheeks. She looks … divine. There’s no other word for it.

“We’re not,” you begin, crawling back up her body, “done yet,” you say it in that same husky drawl as before. This time it’s conscious.

She blinks, her mouth gaping fractionally for a moment. “We’re not?”

“We. Are. Not,” you reply, firm, purposefully pausing between each word.

Your eyes never leave her as you lean down, hands braced on either side of her head. You stop just short of lying fully on top of her, and she does exactly what you thought she might: that lip biting thing that completely shorts your brain and sends every good, clean thought you’ve ever had about her right out of your head.

“Oh,” she says, smiling, cradling your face in her hands, and brushing your cheeks with her thumbs. “Good.”

You’re just about to close the gap between you and kiss her when you stall. She’s getting easier to read, you’re finding what she likes, and you’ve somehow managed not to find out what she doesn’t, but this might be it. Not everyone is into seeing what they taste like – you’d try to describe it if she wanted – but you’re not sure if Karma’s curiosity extends to that.

“Can I kiss you? Is that OK is or is it weird –”

You’re cut off, abruptly, wonderfully, by her lips pressing hard to yours. It’s the only answer you need. She moans into your mouth, her hands sliding to cup the back of your head. She loves it. She loves all of this, and you just can’t think anymore. You can’t wrap your head around it. The kiss builds quicker and goes deeper than you expected it to. She’s always eager, but she’s never kissed you like this before; like she can’t think of ever doing anything else.

“You’re amazing,” she declares, breathlessly, looking at you with an intensity you’ve never seen before. “So amazing.”

You smile, and you know it’s probably smug, but you don’t give a fuck. Everything about Karma’s face says no one’s ever made her feel like this before, and you love it.

“You are,” you counter, briefly brushing your lips against hers. “Beautiful girl.”

The last part slips out in the exhale of a breath before you realise. You don’t have time to backtrack or feel embarrassed, because Karma’s face is lit by the most luminous smile you’ve ever seen.

“I want to make you feel like …” she trails off, seeming unsure of what she needs to say. “Can I touch you?”

It’s the second time she’s said that tonight, but the first time she’s asked, and it feels important.

You nod. “I’ll show you,” you offer, speaking softly for no real reason.

She swallows hard, but it’s not out of nervousness or fear, it’s want. She’s stopped being afraid of wanting you. She’s stopped being afraid of everything. As if to prove it, her hands fall to rest on your hips, fingertips skating around the top of your boyshorts, before dipping inside them. Her touch is brief, barely slipping between your folds. Still, your eyes flutter closed.

“Did you dream about this?” she asks, in this wondrously breathy way.  The heat that flashes over you isn’t anything to do with the heat wave.

“Yes,” you answer, without thinking, hips automatically rolling into her hand.  “A lot.”

“Is that because of …” your eyes snap open, surprised by the question, but not. “I mean, did I?” she clarifies, sweetly.

She doesn't need to say anything else, and there’s no point lying. It’s painfully obvious how turned on you are.

“Yes … you did that … You _do_ that,” you correct, let out a shuddering breath when her fingers slide lower. “Not yet,” you manage, somehow.

“Oh.”

She sounds disappointed, and confused enough for the both of you. Part of you – the very big, sexually frustrated, wound up part – wants to give in, but then you remember this is about her as it is about you.

You force yourself to focus, reach down and lift her hand away.

“Together?”

It comes out half statement, half question. No one’s more surprised than you. You didn’t expect her to be on the same page.

“You said you wanted to feel everything.”

Then, her confusion lifts, and you practically hear the penny stop. “Let me help,” she says, mouth quirking into a sultry little smile that’s becoming familiar.

It’s a little awkward getting your shorts off, given the lack of space between you, but you can’t say you mind, not when she’s tugging at them, watching every inch of skin appear.

“Don’t move,” you say, stupidly, pressing a quick kiss to her lips before you scramble off the bed to get rid of them. 

If the roles were reversed, she’d do some little shimmy, because she’s a flirt and a show off, but you’re not really either, so you just step out of them, very aware she’s watching you anyway. Sure enough, when you turn around to look at her, she’s sitting up, resting on her elbows, doing exactly that. For a moment, you’re not sure what to do next, because she’s really _looking_ , like she’s seeing you for the first time in your lives.

“OK?” you ask, as you climb back on the bed. It’s so hushed it’s almost soundless.

“OK,” she repeats, but you can see that her hands are shaking.

You crawl back toward her and take one of them in yours, kissing the back of it lightly, holding her gaze. “Lay back,” you prompt gently, and she nods.

She fusses with the pillow behind her head, and you just let her, sensing it’s not right to just launch yourself at her without warning. Her hair fans out prettily against it and you smile at her. If you didn’t love her already - hopelessly, endlessly, and effortlessly - you would now. Yes, you’re probably going to end this night having had the most amazing sex ever, but it’s about more than that. It’s lucky you’re not really talking in full sentences, you wouldn’t be able to hear it; your heart beating in your chest is too wild and too loud for that. You puff out a breath to steady yourself, and reach for one of the pillows scattered on the bed - it’s utterly ruined, the blanket on the floor, sheets all twisted. It’s not perfect, but it’s perfect for you and Karma.

(you still wish there were some rose petals to spread)

“Lift up,” you say, resting back on your knees before her, indicating toward her hips.

Her brows furrow, cutely, but she does it anyway. Trusting. You place the pillow in the space she makes, and give her a moment to adjust to the new angle.

“It’ll feel nice … good … better … easier,” you offer, not sure why you’re stumbling over your words and adding extra ones. “I should’ve done it before.”

You move closer, nudging her legs apart, stroking her inner thighs with the back of your hands before settling between them. You sink down just as slowly as the first time, even though it’s needless, because you want to feel the exact moment when your bodies connect completely. The moment they do, Karma’s eyes widen, her lips part, and she looks like she’s going to say something but stops herself. Instead, she grabs your face, pulling you into a fierce kiss. You stay like that, on top of her, trading long, lazy pecks. Some miss their target, at the corner of mouths or cheeks instead, because you’re lost in her, and the fact that she’s bucking her hips up, right into yours. Your eyes flutter closed, revelling in it as your own hips start to grind down, matching the vague rhythm she’s set. As you turn away, desperate for air, she carries on kissing your neck. More confident, her teeth graze and her tongue soothes; exploring you, claiming you for her own.

“Karma,” you drawl, desperately. “I need you.”

You didn’t mean to say that out loud.

“Tell me what you want.” It’s said in that same low, needy voice you’ve gotten used to hearing, but there’s a sweetness to it that undoes you completely. “This?”

She lifts your leg so you’re straddling one of hers. You breathe out an, “Oh Jesus …” before she’s really done anything at all because she presses her leg upward, hitting just the right spot. It feels even better than before. This time, she takes her your hands in hers, and you move together, slow at first, building up, gradually. You’re close enough to kiss her, but somehow you don’t. All you can feel is her. All you can see is her. All you can hear is the sound of you both breathing, growing shallower and the soft, contented sound she draws from you; so different from her own.

“Fuck … that feels so good,” you exclaim around a groan, only to have her press upwards harder, her hands squeezing yours tighter.

“I know … I know ... ” is all she manages, before closing the scant distance between you and captures your lips, again and again with soft, barely there kisses.

It’s not enough. You need more of her. She needs more of you.

Not breaking the kiss, you push your joined hands back into the mattress, and she moans - loud and around some words you can’t quite make out - at the change. Your movements slow, and her eyes flutter open. Then, you let go of one hand, keeping hold of the other tightly. There’s a brief flash of panic that washes over her, and you tentatively cup her cheek, stroking it to soothe her. You thought you loved her before, but it’s nothing like you feel now, closer than you’ve ever been, in this too hot room. You want to touch her, be inside of her. You want it to be as close as you can get to becoming one person. It’s a thought that used to terrify and overwhelm you, but now, looking into her eyes as you slowly trace a path down her stomach with your fingertips, it just feels completely and utterly right.

You move back a little, to give just enough room for your hand to fit between your bodies. Her breath hitches, and you know she’s starting to get tense. You stall, keeping your eyes on her, waiting for the any indication of how she’s feeling. She gives the smallest of nods, and you finally let your hand go lower, stroking through her folds. You go with the same light touches as before, slowly circling her clit every so often. Only this time, you get to see the look on her face every time you do something. It’s intoxicating. And then, you finally ease a finger inside her, kissing her tenderly as you do. She inhales sharply, gripping the sheet with her free hand for purchase, so you wait, keeping your hand still and letting her get used to the feeling. It’s not new for her, but it is different. A strange, wonderful, blissful different.

“Breathe,” you remind her, gently, daring to press a little further in, starting to move slowly out again. “Breathe.”

She exhales, hard, and uneven. “That feels ….” she says, her voice barely above a whisper.

You nod, not able to hold back from smiling. “I know.”

It’s a useless reply, but it’s all that seems right.

If you think about this too much, you’ll ruin it, so you keep going, kissing her through it as you move back and forth, as slow as you can get without stopping until she’s ready for more. _God,_ you love how she feels. So slick, and soft, and warm, and perfect. Everything like you imagined and nothing how you imagined. This time, your curl your finger as you push a little deeper, and she whimpers at it, grabbing for your hip, nails biting in. You hiss at the feeling, dimly aware she’ll leave marks you can’t explain, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but her. Nothing matters but her pleasure.

“Are you OK?” you ask softly, surprised by how shaky you sound

All she can do is nod, and you kiss her again, because she looks so _fucking beautiful_ you feel like crying. She’s starting to relax now, hips rising to meet you, as your name falls from her lips in fragmented sentences made of breathy curses and low, satisfied murmurs.

“Amy …. Oh God …”

She’s said your name millions of times, but it’s never sounded quite like _this_. She doesn’t just like this, she’s starting to enjoy it. You think you could just watch her forever. You could come without her even touching you and you wouldn’t even _care_.

“More?”

You keep the questions quick and simple because really, it’s getting difficult for you to focus, so you have no idea how she must feel.

“Yes … ”she gets out between unsteady breaths. “Please.”

She’s looking at you so intently, so adoringly, that it almost hurts. She doesn’t need the slowness anymore because she’s so wet, but you do it anyway, not least because there’s still a very big part of you that’s fucking amazed this is happening, and gets a ridiculous kick out of imagining your fingers disappearing inside of her again and again. She gasps, sharp and loud, but everything about her face says she’s in absolute bliss. When you press that little bit deeper, curling your fingers, she moans a loud, “Fuck yes,” and she reaches for you again, gripping your shoulders tightly to steady herself.

Somewhere in all of it, your mouth finds hers, and you’re kissing again, greedily, there’s a delicious slip-slide to it all because you’re using far too much tongue. The way she groans into your mouth makes you go that bit harder and faster, pushing her hand back harder into the mattress, just because you can’t get enough of how she feels and how she responds to you. Just when you think it can’t get any better, it does. You feel her thigh pressing up between your legs, insistently.

This isn’t just about Karma anymore.

“Oh fuck ….” you cry out, eyes fluttering closed when she pushes up into you again at exactly the same time as your fingers slide back inside her.

You grind down against her shamelessly, somehow able to keep from stopping what you’re doing to her. She kisses you with the same desperate roughness, sucking your bottom lip, biting on it briefly, before releasing it again. Your bodies starting to sync, both chasing the same rhythm, seeking the same release, but desperate for it to carry on forever. The angle you have to keep your wrist is starting to hurt, but you go past it, sensing that she’s close because her breaths are getting shallow again – knowing the delicious tension you can feel building in your belly is doubled in hers. 

Just the thought makes you want this even more, spreading your own legs wider, pushing against her hand for the extra leverage when you press that little bit harder inside of her.You’re so focused on her, mesmerised by the feeling of your skin against hers, that you don’t realise you’re grinding into air for a moment because Karma’s leg is gone, replaced by her fingers, curious, brushing against you teasingly.

You gasp, sharp and high. “Karma, you don’t have to …”

She’s not even doing much beyond stroking through your wetness, but it’s working. It’s _so_ working. Maybe a little too well. The intensity of it threatens to overwhelm you, and you have to push it aside because the last thing you want to do is cry.

“How does it feel …” she asks, low and husky, gazing at you intently, watching for any signs you might give.

“I don’t …. I can’t … just …. Good.”

Your voice sounds strange, strained and high like it might break, or you might at any second.

None of those words are right. They’re stupid, and tiny, and useless because you’ve never felt this good. Ever. They need to make new ones because it feels amazing. Like your whole body is on fire in the _best_ way, or that you’re made of liquid, or jelly, or _something_ because it’s so amazing it doesn't even feel _real_ and she hasn’t even made you come.

You’re both moving faster now, harder, and it’s different. Less careful and less nervous.

“Don’t stop …” she pleads, and you curl back into her, kissing her haphazardly between quick breaths, dotting along her jaw. “Please … Don’t …. stop,” she repeats, evermore desperate, and it feels like her whole body is pushing down on your fingers.

It might be enough, watching all of this, with her touching you like she is. You relish the pull and the tightness of her, slowing your movements, because it’s getting to be too much. No, you can’t come first, it has to be Karma. It has to be. You try to stop yourself from seeking more friction against her fingers, but you can’t help it.

“I … can’t ….” she whimpers, desperate.

You nod, understanding when her hand moves away, reaching for the sheet again, twisting and grasping it in a tight fist. Her leg moves up again, and you groan with relief. You know it’s all she can do, but it’s all you need. She presses into you with purpose; and you slide more than grind, tilting your own hips forward to meet hers; bodies slick with a sheen of  heat and sweat You watch her and she watches you: skin shimmering, eyes bright, pupils blown. This is how you want her. This is how you love her. Sooner – much sooner – rather than later, you’re going to come. Karma’s _actually_ going to make you come. The thought alone tips you over the edge. It’s fast and unexpected, and takes you entirely by surprise. You see stars. You see fireworks. You see tickertape. You see her. She’s the pinpoint focus of your vision, grabbing for you, and clinging to you as you collapse against her, biting at her shoulder. You make this _noise_ that’s vaguely like her name, but nothing you’ve ever heard before; foreign and strange, like that voice isn’t your own, like your body isn’t your own. You’re not entirely sure that you haven't died and gone to heaven, because your heart is beating so fast it feels like it’s going to explode, unable to contain what you feel.

You want to lie there with her like that, feeling it all wash over you,  fingers sinking, buried as deep inside of her as they’ll go, knowing she’s just getting just as close to the beautiful, hazy, bliss you’re currently drowning in. You never want to stop doing this. You never want to leave this room. This bed. Her.

Later, your world can shrink again; and you’ll sink and drift in your own pleasure when you do this over and over until the sun comes up and goes down all over again. The energy to lift your body, overwhelmed and over stimulated, comes from somewhere, and you force yourself to refocus. So, you keep going, watching her, moving inside of her in the laziest of rhythms, and hoping that it’s enough. You need to be there to bring her through it because you’ll never get the moment she’s teetering on the brink of again. There’s only one first time.

And then, it happens. She comes too. Quicker and harder than you anticipated.

It seems to take seconds, and yet hours, to unfold, right before you. Her release is loud. Head tilted back, eyes closed, she cries your name, gripping your shoulders so tightly you wonder if they’ll break, her back arching, hips lifting. Her mouth falls open in a perfect, beautiful, silent ‘O’ and her brows furrowing as she registers it fully. It’s glorious. You kiss her, and kiss her, and kiss, feeling her shaking underneath you. You move inside her slowly, just as slow as you started, wanting to draw it out for her; relishing the feeling of her around your fingers, muscles pulsing, fluttering, She feels amazing. You feel amazing.

“I love you,” it slips out, whispered in the shell of her ear as you press a kiss to her cheek. “I love you so much,” you repeat, carefully withdrawing your fingers.

When she turns her head to look at you, her eyes are brimming with tears. She’s overwhelmed by it, somewhere between awestruck and terrified. You know exactly how she feels.

“Hey,” you say softly, reluctantly letting go of the hand you’ve been holding all this time to brush her hair out of her eyes. “It’s OK,” you continue, assuring her over and over, pulling her into your arms, not caring about the stickiness or the sweat or anything else. You just want to hold her. “I’ve got you … it’s OK.”

She nestles against your chest, clinging to you tightly. You roll onto your side, taking her with you, listening to her breathing, hard and heavy, her head turned into your neck. Exhausted, all you do is stroke her hair and listen for those breathes evening back out. You could stay like this forever and it wouldn’t feel long at all.

Eventually, she pulls back a little, and you reach over, grabbing for a pillow she can rest her head on. You’re not sure how long you lie there, facing each other, just looking, with barely any space between you, still wrapped in each other’s arms. Somehow, it’s too great a distance. Your legs tangle with hers, and you draw her leg across your hip, stroking patterns unconsciously to soothe her, and because you need that contact. No, you’re craving it. You need to be near her, and need to keep touching her, because you’ve just shared this wonderful, amazing, life-altering moment and all you want to do is rewind the clock and experience it all over again. You study her, unsure of what to say now, wiping away the tear that rolls down her cheek.

“That was…. I just …. no one ever ….” it all comes out of her in one big rush, her voice cracking, heavy with emotion.

She doesn’t need to say anything else.

“Ever?” you risk asking, kissing her forehead and resting your own against it, still watching, still listening.

“Ever,” she echoes. “I just … is it always? Does it feel always like that?” she’s still trying to catch her breath, not quite able to form full sentences. She cradles your face, stroking your cheek. Her hands are still shaking. You can’t help but find it sweet.

You smile. “Not always.”

It sounds a lot like ‘only with you.’ It’s true. You feel so much _more_ with her, and even though you don’t understand it, you’re not scared by it anymore either.

When she’s asked you before to describe how it is with women, all you could come up with, face burning red, was ‘different but a good different.’ You missed out that it's unfathomably sexy, intense overwhelming, and everything that being with men – boys – has never been, because you didn’t want it to feel like point scoring.

From the look on her face, you think she finally understands what you meant.

“I never felt like that before,” she admits, quietly, glancing away.

“Me either,” you say, with a shrug. There’s no real reason not to tell the truth. You’ve been through too much.

She smiles, big and bright. “I get it now.”

“Oh?” you tease, knowing what she means, but needing to hear it anyway.

“You said it was different, that it was good, that it’d be better …. I just didn’t think you meant _that much_.”

You can’t help but laugh. “I didn’t want you to have too many expectations that’s all. Not everyone …” you stop short, because you don’t really know how to finish the sentence.  

It’s not always the same. Sex is always different, but no matter who you’ve ended up doing it with, you knew that once you went there with Karma, it wouldn’t feel like anything you’ve experienced before. You were right. There’s good sex, there’s amazing sex, and then there’s sex with her.

“Not everyone gets to be loved by you,” she declares, sincerely. 

You swallow hard, pushing away the lump in your throat that quickly appears, and blink away the tears that threaten to fall at any second. She closes the gap between you, dotting gentle kisses all over your face.

“Not everyone gets to fall in love with you either,” she adds, whispering like it’s a secret. The best kind of secret. “I’m sorry I took so long to let myself do it.”

“Oh Karma,” you reply, voice thick with emotion. “I would’ve waited forever for this …. to be with you … to love you … to be yours.”

“You are …” she replies, voice breaking, on the verge of tears. The good kind. “You always were.”

You want to say every one of the thousand thoughts rushing around your head, but you can’t. All of them fit and none of them fit. So, you do the thing you always do when words fail you: you kiss her. You reach across, cradling her face, tracing the shape of her lips and brushing them with your thumb. Then, purposefully, gently, you brush your lips against hers. It feels like kissing her that very first time in that loud, crowded gym. She kisses back, soft but insistent. It’s a promise. You grudgingly pull away, smiling at her, before you rub your nose against hers in an eskimo kiss. Behind her head, haloing her, the sun starts to rise. Brighter, clearer orange light seeping into the room through the curtains. It’s a sudden reminder that people other than you and Karma exist, and there’s a world outside this bed, this room, this house, this street, and this city.

Before you do anything else, you need to acknowledge that, because as much as you want to stay here forever, it doesn’t work like that.

“I don’t know what’ll happen when we get back to Austin, Karma,” you begin, cautiously.

“Amy, please,” she jumps in quickly, and you realise your choice of words wasn’t the best.

“But,” you continue, holding her gaze, “I do know this. I know that I want to be with you. I want to be together … with you, because, I love you, so, so much Karma. So much.”

“I love you too,” she says, simple, and effortless, and clear.

She looks surprised by how easily it comes to her. In truth, so are you. Still trying to absorb it, you turn on to your back and look up at the ceiling. You’re not sure if you can look at her while you say what you need to and not lose it.

“And,” you pause to gather yourself, before you turn into that ridiculous sobbing girl again and ruin it all. “I think as long as we have each other, we can take whatever the rest of the world has to throw at us.”

“I think so too,” she replies, in this soft, sweet little voice.

“I don’t plan on giving you up to the rest of the world yet though. I only just got you all to myself,” you assure her, with a smile.

You risk a glance over, feeling her curl into your side, draping an arm across your stomach, her head resting on your chest.

“You can keep me as long as you want,” she replies, and that giddy lightness in her voice is back.

She lifts her head slightly, and you think she’s going to move, but she doesn’t. She gets even closer, and you wrap your arm around her shoulders, kissing her atop the head. Then, she places a kiss, purposefully, over where your heart is. Your eyes flutter closed at it, knowing she must be able to hear how fast its still racing. You exhale, long and content, just listening to her breathing. She’ll still be there whenever you wake up. She’ll still be there whenever you drag yourselves out of bed to make what’s likely a late afternoon breakfast. She’ll still be there the next day, and the day after that. She’ll still be there on the plane and in Austin. She’ll be in your house, and in your bed, and sleepovers won’t just be for sleep anymore. She’ll be there for every moment.

Karma followed her heart and came back to you.

She’s home.


End file.
